I severly doubt that it is an actual room temperature superconductor, but would love to hear the opinions of more well informed people on that topic.
If a material with the properties described actually exists, this paper is exactly the kind of announcement and evidence we'd want for it.
I think I cross-pollinated this thread with another where someone was asking “if this is true why isn't it on the front pages”. The extraordinary evidence I'd want before it hits the front pages and TV talk shows is other scientific/engineering groups managing to reproduce the findings, or at least showing a significant improvement over previous discoveries (there could be a mistake that means the result isn't that big a thing while still leaving room for it to be a significant finding).
Yep. But that doesn't stop me being sceptical of such a jump in success (from tens of K below room to tens+ above at ambient pressure) which is where this sub-that started.
As already stated ("I think I cross-pollinated this thread with..." in the post you replied to) I confused things by mixing replies to different posts in the same place.
Also this is a preprint so clearly it's not vetted by others yet.
This is unusual, superconductivity is a low temperature phenomenon. Recently though, other researches have claimed room temperature superconductivity at high pressures, but low temperatures.
"You can't run across this bridge without falling? Here, I'll have an elephant bounce up and down on one end, that'll make it easier!"
But there will likely be very many bogus preprints for each true extraordinary finding.
Therefore most things showing up like this are untrue.
You'll never make all doubt go away on a new extraordinary discovery, mainly because most claims of an extraordinary discovery turn out to be mistakes (like the FTL neutrino thing a while ago that turned out to be a wiring fault that caused a minute timing error) or occasionally fabrications.
A quiet publication of “this is what we've found, this is what we think it means, please try reproduce or tell us what you think we've misinterpreted” is the way it should go. Unfortunately too subtle a release would be at risk of being ignored, and on the other side you get the mad public press and massive recriminations when it turns out a mistake was made and the finding is not reproducible (like the cold fusion thing I remember from the late 80s).