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This is about detection. To put it another way, you need a single black swan to prove that black swans exists (to whatever sigma).
by 21 11y ago
This is about detection.
To put it another way, you need a single black swan to prove that black swans exists (to whatever sigma).
- rdancer 11y agoBut gravitational waves are a phenomenon without equivalent. Nothing like that had been observed before. (Am I wrong?) W̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶L̶H̶C̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶H̶i̶g̶g̶s̶,̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶a̶m̶p̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶-̶y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶ s̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶s̶ ̶ t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶c̶e̶r̶t̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶ i̶t̶.̶ Why are the researchers certain that their equipment and methodology results can be trusted to such high degree, if there ever has been one positive measurement?
- pja 11y agoThe Higgs detection was not a single event but resulted from the statistical analysis of many events.
- rdancer 11y agoThank you for correcting me!
- cdelsolar 11y agoBecause of the shape of the event, detection in two places, and more importantly, it matching the signature of the theoretical event extremely closely (especially the ringing at the end)
- yaks_hairbrush 11y agoThis comment is making the page formatting gross. Those special characters with the strike-throughs make the entire page over-wide, thus requiring horizontal scrolling to read comments.
- rdancer 11y agoThe browser layout engine should break on the spaces (Chrome does). They are just normal spaces, the combining character should have no effect. You have a bug somewhere. Also, I cannot edit nor delete it now, so tough luck! " " SPACE Basic Latin 0x0020 "̶" COMBINING LONG STROKE OVERLAY Combining Diacritical Marks 0x0336
- caf 11y agoGecko doesn't seem to break that line.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoIsn't the point though that the gravitational wave observatories are looking specifically for "black swans" rather than just observing swans generally. So when a swan with a lower reflectivity is observed then it now fits the "black swan" profile. Could be just a swan covered in soot; you need more data to show that this swan is always black or that the lower reflectivity wasn't caused by a measuring anomaly, etc. I may have pushed the analogy too far!