3 ms·

I don't understand what you mean, I think the headline must have changed? It is currently (4:50 PM EST) "GRAVITATIONAL WAVE RESEARCHERS CAST NEW LIGHT ON ANTIK

I don't understand what you mean, I think the headline must have changed? It is currently (4:50 PM EST) "GRAVITATIONAL WAVE RESEARCHERS CAST NEW LIGHT ON ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM MYSTERY" both in the article, and on the HN item. If it didn't change, I guess my confusions stems from this is an extremely straightforward way to state it. Two gravitational wave researchers wrote the paper, and the paper gave us more certainty about whether the Antikythera mechanism represents 354 or 365 days. I can't envision how to make it less sensationalist.

lupusreal 2y ago
That's clickbait. I suppose you think it isn't clickbait because it isn't lying but I classify it as such because it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves. Clickbaiting without lying is a common technique among science reporters, almost as common as clickbaiting with lies.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I'm sorry if I'm coming off as combative, I'm legitimately, genuinely, confused: what part is clickbait? They are gravitational wave researchers. Poking around this: I have a test for myself before I rant about science journalism: "would it be confusing without the thing my rant is angry about?" Answer here is yes, I'm very familiar with this sort of thing from the astrophysics people in my physics department 18 years ago (monte carlo, bayesian), but it would be bizarre from archaeologists. Poking around this, again: If that isn't convincing: the unwashed masses who we are worried being betrayed by clickbait don't know what "gravitational waves" are, there's no reason for them to be unduly attracted to it.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    "it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves" It's not technically lying but it will nonetheless induce people to think something which isn't true. If this confuses you, consider this article/example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-art-of-lying-by-telling-the-truth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-a... > "A classic example might be if your mum asks if you've finished your homework and you respond: "I've written an essay on Tennessee Williams for my English class." This may be true, but it doesn't actually answer the question about whether your homework was done. That essay could have been written long ago and you have misled your poor mother with a truthful statement. You might not have even started your homework yet." When you say something which is true but say it in a way or context which you know will cause somebody else to believe something which isn't true, that's a form of lying.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      Running through this in my head again and again, and editing 500 times along the way, apologies. I'm done now: You believe that it is narrowly true gravitational wave researchers did this, like a kid saying they "wrote their essay" in response to whether they "did [completed] their homework" I believe it is wholly true. I believe we agree on the narrow truth that they are gravitational wave researchers. I believe we disagree on the wider truth. I believe you believe its a wider lie, in that it indicates they used gravitational wave-style techniques in this endeavor. I believe it is widely true, because they're using the specific techniques that I saw astrophysicists use in grad school. Is it possible you saw "Bayesian", assumed that was the extent of their expertise applied, then noted that it has no relation to their expertise, since that's entry-level stats, not physics?
      - dekhn 2y ago
        The goal of the authors of the PR is to promote a narrative. In this case, the PR intends to increase funding for gravity wave research by imputing its utility in another field. From The ELements of Style, Strunk and White, omit needless words. Dropping "Gravitational waves" from the title conveys the same information. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
        anagramwho 2y ago
        The authors used the LIGO Scientific Collaboration's (open source) Bilby package to do the nested sampling analysis. So this was a drop-in use of this GW software to analyse the antikythera data. There is quite a close analogy between the 22-dimensional antikythera analysis, with its intrinsic and extrinsic parameters, and the ~15 dimensional spinning binary black hole analyses done in the GW world, again with intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. That's the GW connection, and it may not be so clear from the reports.
        2y ago
  - drexlspivey 2y ago
    The "Gravitational Wave" part is clickbait. It could have said "Researchers cast new light...". Also the first paragraph is clickbait "Techniques developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime detected by one of the 21st century’s most sensitive pieces of scientific equipment have helped cast new light on the function of the oldest known analogue computer." it elaborates further down: "Professor Woan used a technique called Bayesian analysis, which uses probability to quantify uncertainty based on incomplete data, to calculate the likely number of holes in the mechanism using the positions of the surviving holes and the placement of the ring’s surviving six fragments." Bayesian analysis has nothing to do with gravitational waves, it's a statistics paradigm. It was not "developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime". The whole gravitational angle is totally superfluous and is only there to get more clicks.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      It's not just Bayesian analysis. I'm beginning to get a distinct impression people saw "Bayesian" and did a quick scan of the paper. To this graduate school physics dropout, this is an astrophysics-style paper on an archaeological artifact.
  - gumby 2y ago
    > what part is clickbait? They are gravitational wave researchers. They are physicists who are in practice data scientists. They are both male, presumably have experienced no amputations, and look like they were born in the 20th century. Their “day job” is in gravitation. They both likely speak English. The only part of which which has even the slightest bearing on their work is that they are of late de facto data scientists, among their (presumable) other skills.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      This is a NPC reply. Yeah, in our profession, people using those tools have "data scientist" on the paycheck. Doesn't mean they wanna be called that or that their actual job is that.
  - IAmGraydon 2y ago
    I have to echo what others have said - this is absolutely clickbait. The fact that they also happen to do gravitational field research has nothing to do with the discoveries involving the Antikythera mechanism. It was included to make the reader of the headline wonder if the designers of the Antikythera mechanism knew something of gravitational waves. The only way to get the answer is to then click into the article to find out. Unfortunately, this is the state of media today. It would be very helpful if the admins of HN could implement a way that users with enough karma could identify and vote to delete articles that have disingenuous headlines. Yes, we can flag articles, but maybe if we could choose WHY we're flagging to make others aware of what the problem is. If we don't protect the integrity of this site as an elevated place to have intellectual discourse, we will eventually lose it to the tidal wave of garbage content that seems to be getting worse by the day.

lupusreal 2y ago

That's clickbait. I suppose you think it isn't clickbait because it isn't lying but I classify it as such because it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves. Clickbaiting without lying is a common technique among science reporters, almost as common as clickbaiting with lies.

refulgentis 2y ago
I'm sorry if I'm coming off as combative, I'm legitimately, genuinely, confused: what part is clickbait? They are gravitational wave researchers. Poking around this: I have a test for myself before I rant about science journalism: "would it be confusing without the thing my rant is angry about?" Answer here is yes, I'm very familiar with this sort of thing from the astrophysics people in my physics department 18 years ago (monte carlo, bayesian), but it would be bizarre from archaeologists. Poking around this, again: If that isn't convincing: the unwashed masses who we are worried being betrayed by clickbait don't know what "gravitational waves" are, there's no reason for them to be unduly attracted to it.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  "it seems intended to give wild impressions which are contrary to truth, namely that the mechanism had anything to do with gravitational waves" It's not technically lying but it will nonetheless induce people to think something which isn't true. If this confuses you, consider this article/example: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-art-of-lying-by-telling-the-truth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171114-the-disturbing-a... > "A classic example might be if your mum asks if you've finished your homework and you respond: "I've written an essay on Tennessee Williams for my English class." This may be true, but it doesn't actually answer the question about whether your homework was done. That essay could have been written long ago and you have misled your poor mother with a truthful statement. You might not have even started your homework yet." When you say something which is true but say it in a way or context which you know will cause somebody else to believe something which isn't true, that's a form of lying.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    Running through this in my head again and again, and editing 500 times along the way, apologies. I'm done now: You believe that it is narrowly true gravitational wave researchers did this, like a kid saying they "wrote their essay" in response to whether they "did [completed] their homework" I believe it is wholly true. I believe we agree on the narrow truth that they are gravitational wave researchers. I believe we disagree on the wider truth. I believe you believe its a wider lie, in that it indicates they used gravitational wave-style techniques in this endeavor. I believe it is widely true, because they're using the specific techniques that I saw astrophysicists use in grad school. Is it possible you saw "Bayesian", assumed that was the extent of their expertise applied, then noted that it has no relation to their expertise, since that's entry-level stats, not physics?
    - dekhn 2y ago
      The goal of the authors of the PR is to promote a narrative. In this case, the PR intends to increase funding for gravity wave research by imputing its utility in another field. From The ELements of Style, Strunk and White, omit needless words. Dropping "Gravitational waves" from the title conveys the same information. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
      - anagramwho 2y ago
        The authors used the LIGO Scientific Collaboration's (open source) Bilby package to do the nested sampling analysis. So this was a drop-in use of this GW software to analyse the antikythera data. There is quite a close analogy between the 22-dimensional antikythera analysis, with its intrinsic and extrinsic parameters, and the ~15 dimensional spinning binary black hole analyses done in the GW world, again with intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. That's the GW connection, and it may not be so clear from the reports.
        2y ago
- drexlspivey 2y ago
  The "Gravitational Wave" part is clickbait. It could have said "Researchers cast new light...". Also the first paragraph is clickbait "Techniques developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime detected by one of the 21st century’s most sensitive pieces of scientific equipment have helped cast new light on the function of the oldest known analogue computer." it elaborates further down: "Professor Woan used a technique called Bayesian analysis, which uses probability to quantify uncertainty based on incomplete data, to calculate the likely number of holes in the mechanism using the positions of the surviving holes and the placement of the ring’s surviving six fragments." Bayesian analysis has nothing to do with gravitational waves, it's a statistics paradigm. It was not "developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime". The whole gravitational angle is totally superfluous and is only there to get more clicks.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    It's not just Bayesian analysis. I'm beginning to get a distinct impression people saw "Bayesian" and did a quick scan of the paper. To this graduate school physics dropout, this is an astrophysics-style paper on an archaeological artifact.
- gumby 2y ago
  > what part is clickbait? They are gravitational wave researchers. They are physicists who are in practice data scientists. They are both male, presumably have experienced no amputations, and look like they were born in the 20th century. Their “day job” is in gravitation. They both likely speak English. The only part of which which has even the slightest bearing on their work is that they are of late de facto data scientists, among their (presumable) other skills.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    This is a NPC reply. Yeah, in our profession, people using those tools have "data scientist" on the paycheck. Doesn't mean they wanna be called that or that their actual job is that.
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  I have to echo what others have said - this is absolutely clickbait. The fact that they also happen to do gravitational field research has nothing to do with the discoveries involving the Antikythera mechanism. It was included to make the reader of the headline wonder if the designers of the Antikythera mechanism knew something of gravitational waves. The only way to get the answer is to then click into the article to find out. Unfortunately, this is the state of media today. It would be very helpful if the admins of HN could implement a way that users with enough karma could identify and vote to delete articles that have disingenuous headlines. Yes, we can flag articles, but maybe if we could choose WHY we're flagging to make others aware of what the problem is. If we don't protect the integrity of this site as an elevated place to have intellectual discourse, we will eventually lose it to the tidal wave of garbage content that seems to be getting worse by the day.