4 ms·
At the point you made the comment, the full number has not yet been shown. That's only the combined number for Higgs to gamma-gamma for 2011 and 2012 (so far).
by mattheww 14y ago
At the point you made the comment, the full number has not yet been shown. That's only the combined number for Higgs to gamma-gamma for 2011 and 2012 (so far).
- JonnieCache 14y agoSorry about that. He just said 5 sigma for the combined signals (I think? maybe I misunderstood again.) Nobel prizes all round!
- lostsock 14y agoCan someone please explain what 5 sigma signifies? Edit: “Evidence” usually means a 3-sigma signal, which existed last December, “Proof” would be a better way to describe a 5+ sigma signal, if that’s what the combined CMS/ATLAS data shows - http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4809 http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4809
- mkramlich 14y ago> Can someone please explain what 5 sigma signifies? It means a statistically very very significant number of physicists are getting laid tonight, around the world. ;)
- kinghajj 14y agoI believe 5 sigma is the threshold for "proof" in the physics community.
- caladri 14y ago99.999% confidence.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoActually, it's 99.99994% confidence (1 in 1.7 million chance of error).
- InclinedPlane 14y ago5 sigma is the traditional limit of significance for new discoveries in particle physics. If you have data showing the existence of a new particle or phenomenon at 5 sigma you publish and you announce and you start saying "this thing exists" instead of "this thing may exist".
- btilly 14y ago5 sigmas means that a model without a Higgs would have their actual data set be 5 standard deviations out from what is expected. That corresponds to 99.99994% confidence on a standard null hypothesis test, and is the usual threshold in physics for considering something proven.
- drostie 14y agoThey just announced 5.1 sigma, and on a normal distribution that would mean that it is 99.999966% certain, so that there is about a one-in-three-million chance that this is due to random chance, otherwise there is some sort of excess here due to a new particle.
- yureka 14y agoThis physics-exchange post does a great job at explaining why 5.0 sigma is required as a threshold for discovery in particle physics, http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/8752/standard-deviation-in-particle-physics http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/8752/standard-dev...
- drostie 14y agoYeah. The gamma-gamma and Z-Z together have been combined into a signal of 5 standard deviations from the no-Higgs Standard Model. Which is the common threshold for a discovery.
- JonnieCache 14y agoOK, guess I should stfu then.