Episode 7: The LK-99 superconductor, and other physics false dawns

If you were anywhere near social media at the start of August, you’ll have seen endless claims of a massive, world-changing breakthrough in physics: the LK-99 room-temperature superconductor.

In this episode, Tom and Stuart—neither of them anything approaching a physicist, so caveat emptor—discuss what a superconductor is, why it would be exciting (or not) for it to work at room temperature, and ask why people online got so excited over claims that one had been discovered… when it actually hadn’t.

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Show Notes

* Video of the Meissner effect - the eerie levitation of superconducting materials

* The initial LK-99 preprint on arXiv

* Stuart’s article from the day LK-99 went viral

* Statistical model that many thought proved LK-99 really was a room-temperature superconductor

* Article in Nature News explaining why the LK-99 material might’ve seemed to have superconducting properties

* Story on the retractions of work by another room-temperature superconductor researcher

* Actually-exciting superconductor advance 1 (and replication); actually-exciting superconductor advance 2 (and replication)

* Article on the Fleischmann & Pons “cold fusion” debacle

* Story of the “faster-than-light neutrino” error

* Plastic Fantastic, the book about the fraudulent semiconductor studies in the early 2000s

* Article on “quantum computing’s reproducibility crisis” and the Majorana particle

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

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