The five-sigma threshold is a limit for making big public announcements, or claiming definitive discrete discoveries (like new particles) that non-particle phys

The five-sigma threshold is a limit for making big public announcements, or claiming definitive discrete discoveries (like new particles) that non-particle physicists can take for granted. But there's lots of intermediate work done at accelerators that can't reach that threshold but still informs further work, and even influences the construction and design of the next multi-billion dollar machines. The bi-annual Review of Particle Physics is as thick as a phone book and filled with (usually) 95%-confidence intervals for measured values. For instance, here is the 89-page summary of what is known about the tau particle: http://pdg.lbl.gov/2015/listings/rpp2015-list-tau.pdf http://pdg.lbl.gov/2015/listings/rpp2015-list-tau.pdf