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Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by ChuckMcM on Saturday July 29, 2023 @09:12PM (#36926658)
The drama does give it kind of a cold fusion vibe. But the motivation of the "industry guy" is pretty text book. If you wanted to scam your way into a Nobel Prize this might be a way to do it right? Still I don't think the Nobel committee would buy it but who knows right?

Going to be really an interesting August and even if it doesn't pan out to be "superconducting" the theory is one that leads to more structural investigations into crystal structures that "might".

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by pfdietz on Saturday July 29, 2023 @09:17PM (#36926691)
The Nobel Prize committee would do nothing unless this was well confirmed. There is no "scamming them".
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by treesciencebot on Saturday July 29, 2023 @09:40PM (#36926856)
This reminds me an amazing piece of documentary[1] I've watched a couple months prior about a man who tried to "scam his way onto a Nobel prize". It really goes into showing how the majority of the system is based on trust and reputation and without well skepticism fraudsters can thrive.

[1]: "The man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfDoml-Db64&list=PLAB-wWbHL7...

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by ChrisMarshallNY on Saturday July 29, 2023 @09:37PM (#36926833)
Might want to ask Rosalind Franklin about that (you’ll need a ouija board).
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by readthenotes1 on Saturday July 29, 2023 @10:04PM (#36927031)
Or Barak Obama
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Saturday July 29, 2023 @10:06PM (#36927042)
Nobels are not awarded posthumously.
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by ChrisMarshallNY on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:11AM (#36929976)
I'm sure that's the only reason.

I have a friend that worked for years at CSH.

Watson is an ... interesting ... chap.

Good at bringing in the money, though.

It's amazing how we can be quite forgiving of people that make money.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Sunday July 30, 2023 @03:55PM (#36935269)
Rather than skirting around the issue with vague insinuations, how about if you commit to a specific reason why the Nobel Committee would violate its proscription on posthumous awards, in this specific case?
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by ChrisMarshallNY on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:44PM (#36937230)
Nah, I'm fine with the vague insinuations.

Have a great day!

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by CamperBob2 on Saturday July 29, 2023 @10:07PM (#36927054)
There are countless examples of people who clearly deserved to win or share a Nobel but were overlooked by the committee. But can anyone think of a hard-science laureate who arguably should not have won?

Note the "hard science" qualification -- obviously the Peace and Literature prizes have a controversial history, but disregard those for the moment.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by lucubratory on Sunday July 30, 2023 @12:21AM (#36927771)
I mean, the most obvious would be António Egas Moniz. His discovery that got him the Nobel for Medicine both didn't work and caused so much preventable illness, injury, and death that it is actually banned in many countries.
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by maxweylandt on Sunday July 30, 2023 @05:10AM (#36929324)
For those who don't know: lobotomy
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Sunday July 30, 2023 @04:00PM (#36935305)
I can think of a few in the Sveriges Riksbank Prize category.

Most recently, Nordhaus, whose work on which the award was based is an absolute travesty.

As with the Peace Prize, the nominations and selection are strongly political.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by ls612 on Sunday July 30, 2023 @05:48PM (#36936360)
What pray tell are your objections to the economic theory behind the DICE models?
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Sunday July 30, 2023 @06:22PM (#36936608)
See Steve Keen, e.g.: <https://evonomics.com/steve-keen-nordhaus-climate-change-eco...>

Bad maths modeling, insipid correlative relation, ignoring of tipping points, etc., etc.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by CamperBob2 on Sunday July 30, 2023 @06:39PM (#36936721)
So a 4-degree temperature rise will wipe out 100% of world GDP, using Keen's math? It's hard to see how his modeling is any better than the work he's criticizing.
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:41PM (#36937213)
The question was "pray tell are your objections to the economic theory behind the DICE models?" Which Keen's essay addresses.

Addressing the shifted goalposts in your "by Keen's math" follow-up: if you're referring to the "rational function" introduced before the fourth-to-last paragraph, note what the context is:

A model that only applies in conditions where it is not needed, when you don’t have an alternative when it is needed, is worse than useless. ... This can easily be illustrated by replacing Nordhaus’s quadratic with a very similar one that does have tipping points.

And Keen specifically chooses a tipping point of +4°C, based on the paper Nordhaus himself cites and Nordhaus's admission that business as usual (BAU) would lead to a +4°C temperature rise by 2100.

The equation also fits observed data.

The point isn't to demonstrate that this is the correct equation, but to show that on the same basis as Nordhaus used to choose his own modeling function, very different results can be demonstrated.

Which Keen makes more than abundantly clear:

Contrary to Nordhaus’s assertion that caution is needed “when using [his model] for large temperature increases”, his model is unreliable for temperatures that are well within the levels on which he has made pronouncements about what global warming will do to GDP.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Monday July 31, 2023 @07:01PM (#36950042)
No further response?
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by CamperBob2 on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @06:22PM (#36978569)
Honestly, I'm not all that interested in it, and am certainly unqualified to suggest improvements to the model. I'd have to go back and read the article more carefully, along with probably a bunch of other material as well, to evaluate it properly. Seems like one of those scenarios where if you torture the data enough it will tell you whatever you want to hear.

It just struck me that both the red and blue traces in the last graph he presents, where he arbitrarily(?) adds another term to the math, are so ridiculous as to not be worth further consideration. If there's a more subtle point, like I said, I'd need to re-read to find it. Either that, or the author needs to bring his lede up front and center. Demonstrating that one bit of math is bad by making up another equally bad one doesn't carry the point as effectively as he was probably hoping it would.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Thursday August 03, 2023 @06:44PM (#36993103)
Keen does tend to presume competence beyond what his readership may bring to bear, I'll allow that.
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by adw on Saturday July 29, 2023 @11:28PM (#36927542)
Or Jocelyn Bell Burnell (who is alive; that was a truly outrageous piece of theft.)
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by astrange on Saturday July 29, 2023 @11:38PM (#36927584)
She makes up for it by getting every other science prize.
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by 8bitsrule on Sunday July 30, 2023 @01:09AM (#36928026)
Or Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered the Cepheid variables that made Hubble's fame possible (shortly after her death).
Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by dredmorbius on Saturday July 29, 2023 @10:05PM (#36927034)
Some prize categories are more readily scammed than others.

(Though I'm not aware of any poorly-supported hard-science Nobels to date.)

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by mlyle on Saturday July 29, 2023 @10:05PM (#36927037)
They're not talking about scamming them based on false research; we're talking about making a play to be recognized as an author/inventor when you didn't deserve it.

It's not going to work here, but similar efforts have confused attribution in the past.

Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope by hgomersall on Sunday July 30, 2023 @04:30AM (#36929104)
I don't know, it has been happening for years in economics.