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Can anyone explain what they mean by the word "confirm"? I looked at the paper to find out and ended up even more confused: "HAT-P-56b (EPIC 202126852b) is a h

by nonbel 10y ago

Can anyone explain what they mean by the word "confirm"? I looked at the paper to find out and ended up even more confused: "HAT-P-56b (EPIC 202126852b) is a hot Jupiter confirmed by measuring the planet’s mass with Doppler spectroscopy (Huang et al. 2015). Our analysis indicates that the planetary hypothesis is the most probable explanation for the signal detected, with the next-most-likely scenario being an eclipsing binary (FPP=65%; see Table 9). However, the radial velocity measurements of Huang et al. (2015) rule out the eclipsing binary scenario favored by vespa and so confirm the planetary nature of this system." http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~ianc/docs/crossfield_K2s_new_planets.pdf http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~ianc/docs/crossfield_K2s_new_pla... So this object was previously "confirmed", yet they are still considering that it may not be a planet at all. Then they say some other measurements do "confirm" it is a planet... Either an object is confirmed to be a planet or not (presumably according to some gold standard measurement method). I don't understand using that word when they may waffle back and forth as to whether the object is a planet.

abdullahkhalids 10y ago
There is no gold standard for confirming the existence of an exoplanet. Very different techniques are used by different groups based on the type and source of experimental data. Every method has its strengths and weaknesses, therefore, often planets detected by one method are then reconfirmed using another method applied to the same or new data. Here is a quote from Huang et a. (2015) https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01776 https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01776 "This planet was originally identified as a HATNet (Bakos et al. 2004) planetary candidate, was followed up by the TRES spectrograph on the FLWO 1.5 m telescope, and also by the KeplerCam imager on the FLWO 1.2 m telescope. Encouraged by these initial results, all pointing toward a bona fide planet orbiting the host star HAT-P-56, the target was proposed for K2 observations. Indeed, the very high quality photometric observations of K2 confirmed the transit, and also eliminated most of the possible blend scenarios."
- nonbel 10y ago
  Then it sounds like these are not really 100 "confirmed" planets (for the usual usage of confirmed), instead they are 100 "likely" planets.
  - abdullahkhalids 10y ago
    Yes. There is no notion of confirmation in physics (or science). All you can do is perform different experiments till all explanations except one have been falsified. The one has been "confirmed" is the lazy way of saying it. Somebody could think of new theory tomorrow that explains the data just as well as the theory that planets exist, and then the planets will be "deconfirmed" till further experiments falsify one of the theories.
    - nonbel 10y ago
      Personally I wouldn't use "confirmed" or "proved" to discuss any hypothesis. However, I think confirmed could be acceptable in some cases. Usually it would be some kind of cheap screening test followed up by a more expensive (but more reliable) gold standard test. Sure, the gold standard may still be wrong, but at least everyone knows what you mean by confirmed. I find the use of confirmed here to be highly misleading.

by nonbel 10y ago

abdullahkhalids 10y ago

There is no gold standard for confirming the existence of an exoplanet. Very different techniques are used by different groups based on the type and source of experimental data. Every method has its strengths and weaknesses, therefore, often planets detected by one method are then reconfirmed using another method applied to the same or new data. Here is a quote from Huang et a. (2015) https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01776 https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01776 "This planet was originally identified as a HATNet (Bakos et al. 2004) planetary candidate, was followed up by the TRES spectrograph on the FLWO 1.5 m telescope, and also by the KeplerCam imager on the FLWO 1.2 m telescope. Encouraged by these initial results, all pointing toward a bona fide planet orbiting the host star HAT-P-56, the target was proposed for K2 observations. Indeed, the very high quality photometric observations of K2 confirmed the transit, and also eliminated most of the possible blend scenarios."

nonbel 10y ago
Then it sounds like these are not really 100 "confirmed" planets (for the usual usage of confirmed), instead they are 100 "likely" planets.
- abdullahkhalids 10y ago
  Yes. There is no notion of confirmation in physics (or science). All you can do is perform different experiments till all explanations except one have been falsified. The one has been "confirmed" is the lazy way of saying it. Somebody could think of new theory tomorrow that explains the data just as well as the theory that planets exist, and then the planets will be "deconfirmed" till further experiments falsify one of the theories.
  - nonbel 10y ago
    Personally I wouldn't use "confirmed" or "proved" to discuss any hypothesis. However, I think confirmed could be acceptable in some cases. Usually it would be some kind of cheap screening test followed up by a more expensive (but more reliable) gold standard test. Sure, the gold standard may still be wrong, but at least everyone knows what you mean by confirmed. I find the use of confirmed here to be highly misleading.