I think this might be a bit exceptional as far as public engagement goes. So I wouldn’t necessarily judge public engagement based on this case.
“Rocks float” vs “rocks not float” is a very easy success criteria for the average person to judge by, lowering the bar for the average person to feel like they can add something to the conversation… so when we add in the potential revolutionary aspects of a room temperature superconductor we have a recipe for significant engagement… it’s even engaging the gawker reflex and people are picking up on it be LK99 is a weird trending topic and people will check to see if it’s an airplane that crashed or something …
In essence it was, by sheer coincidence, bound to go viral… and only because of a number of properties that others won’t have…
“Rocks float” vs “rocks not float” is a very easy success criteria for the average person to judge by, lowering the bar for the average person to feel like they can add something to the conversation… so when we add in the potential revolutionary aspects of a room temperature superconductor we have a recipe for significant engagement… it’s even engaging the gawker reflex and people are picking up on it be LK99 is a weird trending topic and people will check to see if it’s an airplane that crashed or something …
In essence it was, by sheer coincidence, bound to go viral… and only because of a number of properties that others won’t have…