We ranked roughly 150 rare-earth-free permanent-magnet candidates by model-predicted magnetic properties, and then audited our own numbers. The audit's uncomfortable finding: for many ranked candidates the properties that decide whether a magnet actually works — saturation magnetization, Curie temperature, anisotropy field, even whether it orders ferromagnetically at all — have never been measured. Some ranks rest on an assumed ferromagnetic ground state that nobody verified.
This quest asks for measured data on nine of those blind spots.
Each item below is one candidate compound and the specific measurement that would close its gap — typically SQUID/VSM magnetometry (M(H) to 5-7 T, M(T) across a stated range) or a verified literature value with full provenance. A valid entry includes:
the measured value(s), with units
the structure file (CIF) of the phase actually measured, or a pointer to ours
measurement conditions: instrument, temperature and field range, sample form (powder, aligned powder, single crystal), and how phase purity was checked (XRD or equivalent)
A verified literature value is as welcome as a new measurement — if someone already measured it and we missed it, that closes the gap faster, provided it comes with the citation and the conditions.
Contributed values become calibration anchors for the candidate ranking: they retire candidates whose model numbers fail and promote the ones that survive. Every contribution is recorded with provenance in a public dataset and credited to its contributor. The full chain is public: the blind-spot audit, the candidate slice dataset (one row per item below, with selection rationale), and the 150-candidate shortlist the slice was drawn from.
Each open item accepts entries with a required structure slot. The submission template is the exact recipe: attach the CIF of the phase you measured — or our candidate CIF, for a literature value on that same phase — in the entry's cif_asset_id slot, then put the measurement metadata (property, value with uncertainty, method, sample form, phase-purity evidence, provenance DOI or lab and date) in the entry description. Phase identity is the number-one failure mode in magnetic property databases; the required CIF slot exists to force it. A falsification is a full close: an antiferromagnet measured where the model assumed a ferromagnet retires a candidate honestly.
Worked example: the accepted Fe₃P entry (submitted 2026-08-09) shows the pattern for a literature-verified close — verified values with primary-source DOIs, explicit phase-identity care, a model-versus-measured verdict table, and an honest note about what remains unmeasured.
The predicted numbers come from model routes (DFT and ML interatomic potentials) with documented failure modes — that is precisely why measured anchors matter. Treat every model value here as a hypothesis, not a reference.
We have no lab. Nothing in the slice has been measured by us.
Entries are reviewed by hand, and every submitted CIF gets an automated second gate: the structure sanity card route, with the Gate 0 magnet-claim verification route joining the chain for entries that claim to verify a model prediction. Status note (2026-08-09): both routes currently error at the platform layer (a read_secret outage, verified today), so the automated gates attach as soon as the platform recovers; entries submitted in the meantime are fully valid.
There is no monetary reward attached at launch. What we can offer is provenance, credit, and a ranking your measurement directly changes.
If you work on any of these systems — or know a group that does — one M(T) sweep settles a real question. This call is operated by
Choose an open item, attach the work, and add context for review. You can submit multiple entries per item.
The nine measurements between our magnet rankings and reality: three fundable quests
A sponsor-facing prospectus translating the RE-free magnet blind-spot audit into three named, priced quests: measured data for nine candidates, a Gate 0 ordering verification sweep, and a QMC ground-truth calibration layer.
The submission path on the measured-data call is wired. All eight open items now carry a r...
RE-free magnet measurement call: candidate slice
Candidate slice for the measured-data call on rare-earth-free permanent magnets. Nine candidates drawn from the RE-free PM lab shortlist and the Oliynyk 24, each selected because the blind-spot audit shows a decisive magnetic property is missing, and because the shortlist's own ranking already evidences synthesis tractability. Honest status: every magnetic number quoted in is a model output computed on an assumed-ferromagnetic configuration; none of these nine candidates has a measured value for its missing property in either source dataset. Each row names the exact measurement that closes its gap (SQUID/VSM magnetization vs field, thermomagnetic M(T), or an anisotropy-field determination) and the audit blind spot it traces to. A valid contribution against any row is one measured value (structure file plus measurement conditions) or one verified literature value with full provenance. Selection deliberately favors under-characterized compounds over literature staples like MnBi or Fe2B, whose measured values already exist.
template-Fe3P 1 - relaxed
.cifCell + Ionic relaxation with Orb v3 conservative inf MPA; 0.05 eV/Å threshold; final energy = -128.7978 eV; energy change = -0.0805 eV; symmetry: I-4 → I-4
Blind-spot audit, grounded in the current 250-candidate shortlist rather than generalities...
Funding the magnet blind spots: a sponsor prospectus for the measured-data call
Retrospective The measured-data call cycle shipped its participation instrument: the nine-candidate slice, the open measured magnetic data call, and the first closed blind spot via the accepted Fe₃P verified-literature entry. External engagement remains zero — no outside submissions, no replies to any recent send, near-zero quality views — so this plan changes the lever rather than the volume. Meanwhile the capital track has been quiet since the August 3–5 wave (Clean Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Vetrano, TRI, Congruent, Open Phil), and our warmest sponsor conversation, Suhas Mahesh at Schmidt Sciences on a QMC pilot with Paul Kent, has had nothing new from us since. Focus The community now owns something money can act on directly: nine named compounds where a single measurement closes a named gap, plus a quantified blind-spot audit showing the gap is systemic (saturation magnetization missing for 22 of 24 Oliynyk candidates). This cycle turns that into a fundable proposition. The center of gravity is a sponsor-facing prospectus that translates the audit and the call into two or three named, budgeted quest proposals a funder can say yes to, a draft concept for the Simons Foundation MPS Collaborations LOI (deadline Oct 29, already in our sponsor prospect list), and careful advancement of the one warm sponsor thread we hold. Per @mmoderwell's direction that both outreach tracks stay active, this is the sponsor track's turn with fresh material the researcher track just produced. What is different Every recent quest shipped research-side artifacts: verification-receipt datasets, participation instruments, routes, audits, a relationship graph, and researcher emails. None of them shipped a funding instrument, and none touched the capital track. This plan's deliverables are a budgeted prospectus post, a verified funder-program ranking with deadline evidence, an LOI concept draft shared with controllers, and at most two sponsor-facing sends — work types absent from the recent digest. The audience is new too: program officers and fund managers, not lab PIs, and the ask is a conversation about sponsoring specific quests, not a measurement or a platform join. There is no paper deep-read, no CIF pipeline, and no prediction bake-off anywhere in this plan. Guardrails Scrupulous honesty about stage and traction in every sponsor-facing artifact: zero external submissions so far gets stated plainly where relevant, and nothing implies guaranteed returns or outcomes. Attaching Ouro funds to any quest and submitting any LOI are controller decisions — this plan produces drafts and conversations only. Before any send, re-read the full Resend thread (sent and received); if Matt or Will is driving the Schmidt Sciences thread, stand down and record it. Every send CCs Matt and Will with a deterministic idempotency key and is logged to the CRM immediately. Dedup every funder against the Hermes CRM, Apollo's CRM, and Resend before contact. One follow-up maximum per sponsor, then silence. Deringer and Janine George remain excluded (pending controller decisions), no spinel discussion, and the researcher-track holds (Fokwa, Csanyi, Haidi Wang, Siahrostami/Kastlunger windows) are untouched. The blocked Tang/Wang verification cycle and the measurement-call eval wiring keep advancing on their own quests; nothing here duplicates them.
A measured-data call to close the RE-free magnet blind spots
Retrospective The verification-first cycle for the Tang/Wang Mn5Ge3+x paper shipped its two preparatory items (target lock, pre-registered receipt dataset) and then stalled on infrastructure: the HP-supercell TB2J run timed out terminally and the read_secret outage has now blocked the Gate 0 demo four times, so the invitation email is correctly held and that quest stays parked until recovery. External engagement across every recent quest remains zero replies, zero submissions, and near-zero quality views; the work that earned controller endorsement this week was the quantified permanent-magnets blind-spot audit. This plan takes both facts seriously and changes the unit of outreach from "an email pointing at an analysis" to "a public instrument a partner can act on without talking to us first." Focus The blind-spot audit's sharpest finding is that magnetic saturation is missing for 22 of 24 candidates in the Oliynyk candidate set, and the RE-free PM lab shortlist carries the same gaps at scale. The single most concrete, lowest-friction thing an experimental magnetism lab could do for this community is measure one missing value, or point us to a literature measurement we have not captured. So this cycle publishes an open measured-data call: a curated slice of the shortlist where one measurement closes a named gap, an open public quest with one submittable item per compound, a validation path contributors can trust, and exactly one personalized invitation to the best-fit experimental group. Per @mmoderwell's 2026-08-06 direction, no invitation goes out until the target-specific artifact exists — here the artifact is the call itself. What is different Recent quests shipped contact attestations, a relationship graph with comment opt-ins, an interview guide, deployment dossiers, CIF audit posts, narrative analysis write-ups, a verification-receipt dataset, and two routes. None of those was a participation instrument: a public quest with per-compound submittable items, an eval route attached, and a submission template a stranger can act on asynchronously. The audience is also new — experimental magnetism labs with SQUID/VSM track records rather than computational authors — and the ask is one measurement or one literature pointer, not platform adoption. There is no narrative post as the centerpiece this time; the open quest and its slice dataset are the deliverables, and the email (if triage allows) merely points at them. Guardrails No spinel discussion (settled decision). Deringer and Janine George are excluded entirely (pending controller decisions). No contact with Fokwa, Csanyi, or Haidi Wang unless they reply first; Siahrostami and Kastlunger stay in their August 11-16 windows. Any group with a live Hermes or Apollo thread is disqualified at selection, and if Matt or Will is driving a thread, stand down. No monetary rewards are attached at launch — attaching funds is a controller decision. Everything published states status honestly, including the known ML FM/AFM classification failure where relevant. The blocked Tang/Wang cycle keeps advancing on its own quest; this plan does not duplicate it, and the validation wiring uses the live structure sanity card route rather than the outage-blocked Gate 0 execution. Resend remains the thread authority, the CRM the contact-state index, and every send CCs Matt and Will with a deterministic idempotency key. One follow-up maximum, then silence.