Starting from a top student and marching towards the sea of ​​stars

Chapter 231 Sorry, I really don’t believe it

Hearing Ning Chen's question, Xu Zhou did not answer directly, but pointed to his computer screen and said:
"Ning Chen, if you read this paper, you will know what is going on!"

When Ning Chen heard this, he quickly looked at the paper on Xuzhou's computer screen. When Ning Chen saw the title of this paper, he felt very incredible.

"A...superconductor with a superconducting critical temperature reaching 400K?"

As a researcher in the field of superconductivity, Ning Chen knows what the concept of superconducting critical temperature reaching 400K is like.

If this temperature is converted into degrees Celsius used in daily life, this temperature is as high as 127 degrees Celsius!

This is no longer just high-temperature and normal-temperature superconductors, but even the superconducting transition temperature is higher than the boiling point of water.

Ning Chen knew what this meant. If this result was completely true, then the whole world would probably undergo major changes.

Ning Chen subconsciously felt that this result could not be real, because the jump of this result was so strong that it directly crossed a large temperature zone, which Ning Chen could not believe at all.

Thinking of this, Ning Chen asked:

"Teacher Xu, in which academic journal was this paper published?"

"arXiv. Ning Chen, how reliable do you think this paper is?"

Hearing the name of arXiv, Ning Chen felt that this result was not surprising.

To be precise, arXiv is not an academic journal, but a literature library.

One of the biggest features of arXiv is that the papers above do not require peer review and can be easily published, so the quality of the papers here is uneven.

In this literature base, there are many high-quality papers, but there are also many papers that cannot even be called academic garbage.

To discern the quality of each paper, readers need to rely on their own judgment.

"From my experience, the results of this paper are most likely not true. Of course, if I want to make a specific judgment, I need to read this paper carefully."

Hearing Ning Chen's answer, Xu Zhou also breathed a sigh of relief.

"It turns out that you don't think the results of this paper are true. When several of our teachers saw this paper, they all had different opinions. Many teachers felt that the content of this paper still had a certain degree of credibility. .”

Ning Chen was a little surprised when he heard this. If it can make the teachers of the School of Materials think it has a certain degree of credibility, then there should be something really in this paper.

"Teacher Xu, let me read this paper carefully first."

Ning Chen was really interested in this paper, and temporarily stopped what he was doing to read the paper carefully.

This result came from a research team in South Korea. This research team still had a certain status in South Korea. This made Ning Chen start to doubt his judgment just now.

But Ning Chen was not affected by these factors, and instead focused on the paper itself.

No matter who this paper was written by, or how incredible the results are, the content of the paper is the only basis for judgment.

Ning Chen carefully looked at the contents of the paper and carefully analyzed every important part. At the same time, he was also doing some modeling and calculation work in his brain.

An hour later, Ning Chen finally finished reading the paper and gave his own conclusion.

“If you don’t analyze it carefully, it’s really easy to be confused by some of the contents in the paper.”

Ning Chen didn't know whether this was a deliberate move by the team or whether some mistakes had been made accidentally.

But no matter what, the results of these errors exist objectively.

Seeing that Ning Chen seemed to have finally finished reading the paper, Xu Zhou came over and asked:

"How about it, Ning Chen, what do you think of the content of this paper?"

"It is indeed a paper of a certain standard. If I don't read it carefully, it will be difficult to find errors in the paper."

Xu Zhou keenly heard the meaning that Ning Chen wanted to express from Ning Chen's words.

"So, this paper is deliberately false?"

"We can't say that yet. It could also be an error caused by negligence."

In the absence of clear evidence to prove that the paper was fraudulent, Ning Chen still could not directly draw such a conclusion.

"So Ning Chen, where is the problem?"

Ning Chen slid the mouse wheel and found the location of the problem. "Mr. Xu, this is it. This paper actually only verified the Meissner effect of the existence of matter, but did not conduct other research, and concluded that this matter is a superconductor..."

Listening to Ning Chen's explanation, Xuzhou gradually discovered the problem.

"I see, even if the data in this paper is completely true, it still cannot prove that this material is a superconductor... This South Korean research team is really good at playing tricks."

At this time, Xu Zhou subconsciously believed that these were things they did deliberately, because it was unlikely that such important things would be ignored when doing experiments and writing papers.

"Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that they just did not reflect these things in the paper. As for the final result, as long as we reproduce the experiment according to the content in the paper, everything will be clear. "

Xu Zhou was a little surprised when he heard this. In order to verify the authenticity of the content in the paper, it would be a bit of a big deal to repeat the experiment.

"Ning Chen, since you think the results of this paper are not true, do you think it is necessary to do the experiment again?"

"Mr. Xu, of course I don't simply want to falsify this result, but I think there are still some merits in this idea. Maybe we can find some inspiration from it to help us find really high temperature, even It’s a room-temperature superconductor.”

"Well, it seems that it is completely necessary to reproduce the experiment. Now that this topic is so hot, it is estimated that some other laboratories will also plan to reproduce this experiment."

"Then Mr. Xu, let's try to reproduce this experiment as soon as possible. It would be a bit late to publish a paper on the reproduction of the experiment after other laboratories."

"Okay, then let's be the first experimental group to reproduce. Ning Chen, I will also participate in this experiment and call a few more students over."

After the two reached an agreement, they quickly started preparing for the experiment.

This time, Ning Chen, Xu Zhou, Sui Feng, Yuan Shuai and others all joined in the experiment.

However, although it is just a reproduction experiment, this work is not that easy to carry out.

Ning Chen had carried out many experimental reproductions before, but each reproduction was not so smooth.

After gathering everyone together, Ning Chen explained some precautions in this experiment.

"In this experiment, our core step is to conduct the experiment according to the content in the paper of the Nan Gaoli team. However, because there are many things that are not reflected in the paper, we still need to improve the details of many experiments so that we can accurately Reproduce these experimental phenomena."

Even in some places in the paper, the possibility of some data being adjusted does not rule out, so Ning Chen still needs to be very cautious about the details of these experiments.

The suspected superconducting material synthesized in this experiment is a lead apatite crystal structure.

It's just that the crystal structure of this lead apatite is relatively special, it has been modified, and some copper impurities have been added to it.

When measuring superconducting properties, the scientific research team of South Korea did not create a high-pressure environment, but conducted measurements under normal pressure.

After laying out the plan for the experiment, Ning Chen and others began to reproduce the experiment.

The core idea of ​​the entire experiment is not complicated. It only requires mixing several powdered compounds containing lead, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus together, and then heating them at high temperatures for several hours.

Chemical reactions can occur between these powders, and the final product is copper-doped lead apatite crystals.

However, because the scientific research team of South Korea did not indicate the specific conditions of the experiment in the paper, but only used some ambiguous language to describe it, the initial replication experiment was not considered a success.

Xu Zhou even doubted whether this product could not be synthesized at all, but Ning Chen still felt that there was no problem in the synthesis of substances.

After dozens of experiments, Ning Chen and others finally figured out the accurate experimental conditions.

In the end, the experimental team finally succeeded in preparing a lead apatite crystal structure material exactly like the one in this paper.

"Through the test results of scanning electron microscopy and other instruments, we can confirm that the two substances are exactly the same. Next, we can prepare to verify whether the results in this paper are true or not."

Because the size of this sample is small, it is not easy to test, and it is likely to damage the structure of the material, so subsequent measurement experiments are not that easy.

Ning Chen specifically asked everyone to prepare enough experimental samples before conducting subsequent measurements on superconductivity.

The first measurement experiment conducted was that of the Meissner effect.

The so-called Meissner effect refers to a magnetic property in which when the magnetic field intensity weakens, the magnetization intensity completely offsets the magnetic field intensity, making the magnetic flux density zero.

This is a property of superconductors, so it is very necessary to conduct this experiment.

After making preparations for the experiment, Ning Chen organized everyone to start the experiment.

There are several methods to verify whether a material has the Meissner effect, among which Ning Chen chose the magnetic levitation method.

This method is relatively intuitive, the operation is not complicated, and it has high experimental stability.

(End of this chapter)