Superconductor Breakthrough Claims Traced to a Basement Lab in Seoul (yahoo.com) 110
In a neighborhood in Seoul there's an ordinary red-brick, four-story building, reports Bloomberg — but there's something unique about the building's basement office. It's somehow the registered address of the Centre "whose extraordinary claims about a breakthrough in superconductor technology have shocked the scientific community and captivated the world."
Bloomberg also reports that:
- "No one responded when a Bloomberg News reporter knocked on the center's locked doors or reached out via LinkedIn."
- "Goods including bottles of sparkling water delivered to the center's address have been left untouched outside the office's entrance."
- "Multiple attempts to reach the scientists at the Quantum Energy Research Centre were not answered."
- "The center's website has also been closed and says it is 'under construction.'"
However, Kim Hyun Tak, one of the authors of the papers who is a research professor of physics at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said the skeptical reaction is expected. "It's common practice when a new crucial discovery or invention is made public that there are more people who say that it's not credible," Kim said in a Zoom interview. "It's a natural thing for some people to laugh at it because it's the first time, and they don't even know what it is, but as time passes, they start to believe it...."
In response to questions about why the Quantum Energy Research Centre hasn't provided the materials to other scientists, Kim said that it doesn't have enough inventory of the LK-99 compound nor time to recreate it, and that the researchers have been distracted by the number of journalists trying to contact them. "You know that the office is extremely small and in a poor state." he said. "It's so small, and you need the money to make the compounds. That's why they cannot mass-produce it."
Despite the questions, he remained defiant that the research was sound. "The experimental data speaks for itself," Kim said. "We know it because we're the ones who synthesized it and conducted the studies."
"The claim has been met with widespread excitement globally," adds Bloomberg, "sending related stocks soaring in South Korea and China, but also skepticism as past claims had been later proven wrong."
Bloomberg also reports that:
- "No one responded when a Bloomberg News reporter knocked on the center's locked doors or reached out via LinkedIn."
- "Goods including bottles of sparkling water delivered to the center's address have been left untouched outside the office's entrance."
- "Multiple attempts to reach the scientists at the Quantum Energy Research Centre were not answered."
- "The center's website has also been closed and says it is 'under construction.'"
However, Kim Hyun Tak, one of the authors of the papers who is a research professor of physics at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said the skeptical reaction is expected. "It's common practice when a new crucial discovery or invention is made public that there are more people who say that it's not credible," Kim said in a Zoom interview. "It's a natural thing for some people to laugh at it because it's the first time, and they don't even know what it is, but as time passes, they start to believe it...."
In response to questions about why the Quantum Energy Research Centre hasn't provided the materials to other scientists, Kim said that it doesn't have enough inventory of the LK-99 compound nor time to recreate it, and that the researchers have been distracted by the number of journalists trying to contact them. "You know that the office is extremely small and in a poor state." he said. "It's so small, and you need the money to make the compounds. That's why they cannot mass-produce it."
Despite the questions, he remained defiant that the research was sound. "The experimental data speaks for itself," Kim said. "We know it because we're the ones who synthesized it and conducted the studies."
"The claim has been met with widespread excitement globally," adds Bloomberg, "sending related stocks soaring in South Korea and China, but also skepticism as past claims had been later proven wrong."
Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares?
Either others can duplicate it or not. How nicely they paint their building is not important. The article is ridiculous. Good science does not require a big fancy glass and steel building.
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I think it has more to do with no one responding and it not looking like it is associated with the institute but a convenience store.
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Re: Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:3)
Re: Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:5, Insightful)
No they don't. If they published enough info for others to duplicate then yay. If not, then that's that. Science does not require they answer their door for hundreds of international press assholes wasting their time and publishing incorrect stories nor does it require they help anyone with anything. They published. That's enough. If their paper is bad it will be withdrawn.
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If their paper is bad it will be withdrawn.
It is. Horrendously so.
All it really shows is that the stuff is conductive.
It lacks rigor so badly, that we're now going to be in a situation where it'll be claimed that the labs trying to reproduce "did it wrong" for decades.
However, the diamagnetic properties of it make it worth investigating. But it's worth noting that nobody has found any evidence of superconductivity in it, yet.
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Yeah, it's not looking good so far. As I said elsewhere, not my field, holding out hope but don't expect much given what I've seen others in field say about it.
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It's science. Even if found to be false. We (they, not me) are following the scientific method and confirming the experiment.
Soon enough, be it days or months, doesn't matter, enough others will confirm or deny the experiment. That's science. I'd obviously prefer a positive report but if it comes back bad then I am happy to see science functioning as intended and filtering out bad results.
Re: Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:2)
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Science isn't about declarations. It's about reproduction and trust.
That's true except for the "trust" part. Trust is not science in any way, never was and never will be.
Re: Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:1)
Lack of Interest in Confirmation Troubling (Score:5, Insightful)
Either others can duplicate it or not. How nicely they paint their building is not important. The article is ridiculous.
Yes...and no. The emphasis on the age of the techniques and quality of the building is ridiculous but the mention that they are not responding to requests to share samples of the compound and have no time to recreate more is worrying. The typical concern of researchers in their position is "have I made a huge mistake or did I get it right?" which means they are usually only too happy to provide trusted colleagues with samples to confirm their results or at least they would be making more compound for this if they ran out.
The fact that they seem to have no interest in helping others check their results is, I would say, concerning and not a good sign...but time will tell since their results will be checked with, or without, their help.
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Yes and no... they published a few variants of their paper in the last few months.
If they provided enough info for others to duplicate then yay. Otherwise, oh well, just one more bad claim, everyone moves on.
The niceness of their building, refusal to talk to obnoxious stupid press or reply to tens of thousands of linked in requests has nothing to do with the quality of their science. Maybe they e been burned before, maybe they're too busy changing the entire future of humanity, maybe they moved to anothe
Re: Lack of Interest in Confirmation Troubling (Score:2)
A more rational explanation is that either it was an intentional fraud and it has already done what it was supposed to do (move markets, see end of TFS) or that they were mistaken and now they want to avoid all of the laughter and "I told you so"s. Because based on replication attempts so far, so far it looks like they were mistaken at best.
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All of that is totally possible. I am completely open minded to anything from we'll be living like the Jetsons soon to malicious fraud or anything in between. But I am not going to judge the science based on their building or social media activity.
This is way outside my field so I have to entirely rely on others on this one and I have seen people in the field saying why they think this isn't real which is disappointing and likely the case but until it's officially dead, I will maintain hope.
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If they provided enough info for others to duplicate then yay.
The problem with this is that a paper cannot contain every detail of the fabrication and testing process. There are always details that are missed out generally because the researchers deem them irrelevant and typically they are absolutely correct to exclude them...typically. That's why it is usually important for those making big claims to cooperate and help teams of researchers seeking to confirm their results. By all means, ignore the press and curious members of the public but you do not ignore the exp
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They've stated that they plan to share samples once the review of their current paper is complete, e.g. a couple weeks from now.
Attempts to recreate it are underway, with some preliminary results. Based on what I'm seeing right now, I'm strongly suspecting that this is going to end up with a strongly diamagnetic material but not superconducting.
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Indeed, everyone knows that The Center is in Blue Cove, Delaware.
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This reminds me a bit of Flappy Bird. That was created by a Korean guy, who eventually deleted it and refunded the considerable amount of money he made. The pressure of all the attention was too much for him.
Wouldn't surprise me if they abandoned this site after a stream of international journalists came knocking on the door. Their LinkedIn contact requests are probably numbering in the tens of thousands by now.
Re:Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:5, Insightful)
That was true maybe 50 years ago, if not longer. These days, all the low hanging fruit has already been picked. Increasingly, science requires teams with members of different specialties and big money behind it.
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Re:Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Most breakthroughs are normally by accident and in garages anyhow
[citation needed]
[especially about the "garage" claim]
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I picked up on that but it’s a narrow scope in a narrow window of time. There were very specific reasons thing played out that way most of all unimaginative suits.
Not Science either (Score:3)
And they made novel engineering implementations of existing science.
Steve and Woz did not create any new SCIENCE in their garage (or bedroom)
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They just managed to make a business out of it.
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this is the truth behind the microcomputer revolution - everything allowing this thing to be created, then troubleshoot with simple multi-meter (or oscilloscope if you're doing tape, TV-out or audio) was because standards Ike ttl with fairly high-density packages predate the revolution!
it was easy for folks living near computer engineers to collect cheap clearance items, so all you needed to create an apple 1 was in your garage! HP pulled the same trick 40 years previous
Really, realizing the dream of a
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The Apple, not umbered until the ][,was built by Woz, not the pair, to show off at the Homebrew Computer Club.
Jobs saw commercial potential, and the *business* was run from the garage.
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So five breakthroughs in the past 200 years is "most" of them? And what about the garages? :-D
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>Most breakthroughs are normally by accident and in garages anyhow
What? No they aren't lol
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"Older 19th century methods"
Yep. That definitely makes me feel old.
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We are in the 21st
The 20th century began on 1 January 1901, and ended on 31 December 2000.
There is no way you have been alive long enough to wax nostalgic the 19th, no matter who you are.
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Based on a combination of models based on modern medical knowledge and documented cases of extreme age, I believe the theorized limit to human age is ~124.
So technically, some genetically gifted person who has taken excellent care of themselves their entire life and somehow managed to avoid accident or illness (and coming to the notice of news media) could still be alive. I'd bet everything I own that such a person doesn't exist, but there's a tiny but reasonable chance I could lose the bet.
Still, I doubt
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A google search for the oldest person alive [google.com] has them born in 1907.
There is literally nobody that remembers the 19th century any more, and hasn't been for a few years.
Re: Peer review will confirm soon enough (Score:5, Informative)
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Most breakthroughs are normally by accident and in garages anyhow, so I don't understand why Bloomberg is being so snooty about the lab and the state of the building.
This has not been true since the 1800s, and even then likely false. Most breakthroughs are the results of expensive university / private labs backed with significant funding.
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I think you're using a different definition of breakthrough. The ones you expect to find (which I don't call breakthroughs, but rather improvements) almost always come from labs. The others...show up wherever someone is working on something. Check out the way the benzene ring was discovered. Or vulcanized rubber.
Fancy labs generally allocate use to particular projects, and anything deviating from those is suppressed. More informal labs/shops/etc. are more open to unexpected results. But "garage" is hi
Why is Bloomberg so pissy? (Score:2)
I don't understand why Bloomberg is being so snooty about the lab and the state of the building
Look at the Game Stop / AMC / etc meme mania stocks as well as Hindenburg (another story showed up while I was looking at this one): lots of billionaires got burned including this one!
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It has been replicated twice. Once in simulation and once by researchers in China who actually produced a video showing the magnetic levitation.
https://www.tomshardware.com/n... [tomshardware.com]
https://t.co/4t4D2gIeBp [t.co]
https://www.bilibili.com/video... [bilibili.com]
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Once in simulation and once by researchers in China who actually produced a video showing the magnetic levitation.
Admitted hoax.
There has been, to date, zero evidence of any superconductivity of the substance observed by any lab.
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You are right and I stand corrected.
A more detailed summary of the current status at Nature.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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Most breakthroughs are normally by accident and in garages anyhow,
Lol
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Most breakthroughs are normally by accident
And most breakthroughs are not heralded by the words "eureka," but by the more common phrase "that's funny."
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Apparently they forgot that the world's first man-made sustained nuclear fission reaction was under the bleachers of an unused stadium at the University of Chicago.
Sometimes important work is done where you have the space, and sometimes that space is in a dusty basement of a mostly empty building.
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The materials to create CP1 became available before the construction at Argonne Forest was complete, so they built it in the middle of the fucking city, speeding development up by about 3 months.
It should however be noted, that this is a ridiculous fucking comparison.
CP1 wasn't built by some dingbats who don't even know how to produce a paper correctly.
Make some semiconductors from it. Then, we'll see. (Score:1)
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Flying cars must have automated control. MUST. No manual control allowed. Otherwise they are much too dangerous for anyplace more crowded than rural Idaho, or perhaps rural Nevada. (I.e. places where people who could afford them already used Piper Cubs, etc.)
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Is this shit for real? (Score:4, Informative)
I hope it's real but I still haven't seen any clear evidence yet. Many of the videos look either deliberately faked or show fools mistaking paramagnetism for the Meissner effect. I mean, the least you could do is mistake diamagnetism for the Meissner effect .. that would be something -- but how the fuck can you mistake paramagnetism for it? Jesus. Reminds me of why we have the peer review process even with all its flaws. It's been two weeks now, hasn't it?
AI, fusion, and superconductivity (Score:1)
I hope it's real but I still haven't seen any clear evidence yet.
We're really on the brink of the golden age, a post scarcity society.
I mean, we will soon have AI, fusion, and now superconductivity. In only be 50 years or so robots will be doing all the labor, conducting all the research, and generating all the cultural content. And energy will be so cheap we won't bother to meter it.
All we humans have to do is sit back and enjoy life.
Re:AI, fusion, and superconductivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Those technologies in no way promise the economic reforms required to deliver a post-scarcity golden age. We've already proven ourselves to be quite adept at artificially enforcing scarcity in the face of plenty with digital goods and telecommunications.
These technologies without any changes to our economic system will only deliver increased unemployment and fatter profit margins for the ownership class. Most humans will have to scramble and scrape even harder to survive in this scenario. Again, history has shown it's happened before - the digital revolution did not lead to an increase in worker income or a decrease in working hours, because the required economic reforms did not accompany it (quite the opposite in fact).
Some things are getting more scarce (Score:3)
We're really on the brink of the golden age, a post scarcity society.
That depends on what you are looking for. In science, we try to do our best to pursue the objective truth and all the indications so far are that this is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity in today's society. Indeed, we increasingly see politicians from all sides ignore objective reality in favour of their ideological beliefs.
Re: AI, fusion, and superconductivity (Score:3)
That would be a plutocide. (Score:2)
Killing off of billionaires is not a genocide. They are not a people.
Nor are they people.
They're more like mosquitos, only bigger, able to suck more blood and need mechanical contraptions to buzz around.
Also, you need more Raid. Four cans per billionaire, at least.
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I'm not convinced, even if this discovery turns out to be genuine, that it will be more economically efficient to use it in place of standard copper and aluminimum wires in most use cases.
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This one definitely not. It has reportedly a very low current carrying capacity. It's a polycrystaline solid, which means that it's only occasionally going to work. (You've got to get a sample that has a conductive path all the way through it, and you've got to attach your leads to the correct place.)
OTOH, if it's real, and if the theoretical analysis is correct, than a single crystal form should be reliably super-conductive (though still brittle and with low current capacity) and possibly only conductiv
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I hope it's real but I still haven't seen any clear evidence yet.
We're really on the brink of the golden age, a post scarcity society.
I mean, we will soon have AI, fusion, and now superconductivity. In only be 50 years or so robots will be doing all the labor, conducting all the research, and generating all the cultural content. And energy will be so cheap we won't bother to meter it.
All we humans have to do is sit back and enjoy life.
Unless its hijacked for profits which is probably the more likely outcome.
Re: AI, fusion, and superconductivity (Score:2)
We are already in an age of artificial scarcity in which people are actively prevented from solving their own problems so that someone else can profit from an approved solution, and where profit from selling junk food to people who are already fat is prioritized over feeding the starving. There will never be a star Trek style post scarcity future because we will ride this bomb all the way down.
Re:Is this shit for real? (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
"Two separate experimental efforts by teams at the National Physical Laboratory of India in New Delhi3 and Beihang University in Beijing4, reported synthesizing LK-99, but did not observe signs of superconductivity. A third experiment by researchers at Southeast University in Nanjing5 found no Meissner effect, but measured near zero resistance in LK-99 at -163C (110 K) - which is far below room temperature, but high for superconductors."
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Diamagnetism also exists [wikipedia.org].
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There are two reasons why the researchers are not so forthcoming about the whole thing.
1: It's a hoax 2: They're worried someone else will steal their breakthrough and #profit
In case of #2, keep quiet and develop yourself until you have a viable product. You stand to gain massive profits, why come out with incomplete data?
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Where have the supermen gone? (Score:1)
It's natural to be skeptical when... (Score:2)
You don't provide the standard level of care and evidence in publishing.
If this is real, they could have done a MUCH better job coming forward with it to avoid this stuff. All their behavior is that of a phony except for the detailed directions to reproduce. But that's still not enough to avoid this in the short term.
Demonstrate it (Score:3)
"doesn't have enough inventory of the LK-99 compound nor time to recreate it" but surely they have at least some speck of the material that is a superconductor because they "synthesized it and conducted the studies".
So invite some folks over and show them.
Re:Demonstrate it (Score:5, Insightful)
I do get not having a lot currently to give out. Not only believable but expected.
The part "and don't have time to recreate it" however is baffling.
They have nothing but time to recreate it.
It isn't like anyone is going to listen to another word they have to say that isn't about LK-99.
They have no other options but to resolve this.
What else could they possibly be spending their time on? Anything except this is a waste.
Nothing else will ever have papers accepted for, nothing else will make them income to pay their staff, nothing else will advance their careers or research.
They now have nothing but LK-99 to spend their time on, and the quicker the better.
Without it, they are finished.
They either spend their time on LK-99 or they spend it on nothing, there's no other options for them at this point.
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The part "and don't have time to recreate it" however is baffling.
[...]
They either spend their time on LK-99 or they spend it on nothing, there's no other options for them at this point.
If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit.
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"What else could they possibly be spending their time on?"
Testing the samples they do have.
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From what I understand,.while it exhibits the Meissner Effect, its superconductivity is fragile to magnetic fields and likey difficult to exploit. Also a few labs revreated the experiment without success.
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Have you considered that maybe they are spending their time on aspects of future commercialization?
Could've been worse... (Score:1, Troll)
It could've been in the basement of a pizza parlor and triggered all the conspiracy nuts.
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It could've been in the basement of a pizza parlor and triggered all the conspiracy nuts.
It doesn't work if the basement actually exists.
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It could've been in the basement of a pizza parlor and triggered all the conspiracy nuts.
Just tell them that. It's not like they'll check.
Now we know it's fake (Score:3, Funny)
'Cause real scientists work in abandoned castles or high-tech facilities under tropical islands.
"sending related stocks soaring in South Korea" (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's one possibility.
Another is that mom isn't letting him stay in the basement again until he does the dishes, cleans up after the dog, and takes out the trash . . . so did anyone check to see if he was in the dining room, holding his breath and turning blue?
hawk
I called it the moment it was reported. (Score:2)
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Did you?
https://www.tomshardware.com/n... [tomshardware.com]
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Tom's hardware isn't claiming replication, they are reporting on two parties who are.
Here is a preprint on simulated replication from Researcher Sinéad Griffin from the U.S.'s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.168... [arxiv.org]
The synthesis of the material and confirmation of properties was done by the School of Materials Science and Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. That preprint is here https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.160... [arxiv.org]
That group also posted a video showing th
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I have to retract this. The researcher who ran the simulation has stated her results do NOT confirm superconductive properties, only flat banding which is common among materials which exhibit those properties.
Here a general summary of findings updated as of 8/7. https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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Sometimes when confronted with such an asshole integrity hurts but here it is all the same. https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Patent (Score:1)
Yeah, in a basement (Score:2)
You know, doing research in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're doing research in a basement."
-- Professor Aldo Raine
Einstein did his best work in a patent office (Score:3)
I mean he worked out most of the relativity while working in a Swiss patent office.
Appearances aren't everything (Score:2)
Just remember that Chicago Pile-1 was located under the west viewing stands of Stagg Field. Also bear in mind that so many dotcom startups spent all their venture capital funding on fancy office spaces. Appearances only matter to those who value superficiality.
There it is... (Score:2)
sending related stocks soaring in South Korea and China
They really buried the lead here.
Mother's basement? (Score:2)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof (Score:2)
Peer Review (Score:1)
Re:When scammers are inconsistent... (Score:5, Informative)
So... is it center or centre?
It's "center" when written by Americans.
It's "centre" everywhere else English is written.
In this case it's both as, while the article is in an American publication, they have used the correct, given spelling for the lab's name.
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American girl: Why do you call cookies "biscuits"?
British guy: Maybe because we invented the language?
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What a ignorant argument.
English originated in Britain in the 5th century. The language spread to the Americas by British people settling in British colonies in the 17th century. Draw a chalk line there, at that point the language and the people were the same. Both sets of people, those in the Americas and those who remained in Britain have an equal claim to the source of the language so the changes are just as valid regardless of how each group decided to organize their government.
Or to put it another w