July 06, 2012
So do the 5-sigma Higgs-like particle results imply that scientists are 99.99994 percent sure that they've found the Higgs boson? Not exactly.
From Physics Central:
Although statistical significance can be a good guideline for many physics experiments, scientists can't base their results solely on these benchmarks. In fact, other errors can creep into the data and contaminate entire datasets, even very promising ones.
Remember when neutrinos were supposedly traveling faster than light late last year? That result reached a six-sigma level of confidence – even higher than the 5-sigma level convention required for new particle discoveries. But we learned earlier this year that neutrinos indeed obey the universal speed limit, so what went wrong?
Most crucially, the faster-than-light neutrino experiment suffered from a systematic error that affected all of the data; faulty cables consistently gave the researchers bad readings. No matter how many times physicists repeated the experiments, they would get the same yet inaccurate results.
This situation is akin to measuring someone's height with a meter stick that is several inches longer than it should be. Even if you take hundreds of measurements and average all of the tiny human errors and approximations, you'll never avoid the fact that your meter stick is giving you consistently bad results.
So how do scientists make sure they avoid this problem when statistical analyses can't account for it? Part of the answer is using independent experiments, like CMS and ATLAS, because systematic errors are less likely to affect experiments with different designs.
This is part of the reason why scientists are so excited about the recent results. Scientists are seeing not only very high sigma bumps in the data but also similar bumps from two independent experiments.
More here.
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 07:52 AM | Permalink






















Comments
Action the 5 Sigma level does mean that physicists are 99.99994 positive that they've found 'A particle'. I'm sure if you asked them, they'd say, "Yes we're 99.99994% sure it is a particle. Whether it is the Higgs or not needs further investigation of the data.
If as you say there are errors discovered then i'm sure it'll be a surprise to 99.99994% of physicists.
It's not only that the data has been found from independent experiments that has every body excited. The other major reason why people are so executed is that it fits with expectations, right in the middle of the possible places where it could have been. At 126 GeV, it is perfect - a little too perfect - probably not much room for new physics.
Also, everyone knew or assumed how the neutrino experiment was going to turn out to be. It was only the media beat up that made it sound like toppling Einstein was an actual possibility.
Posted by: Rodney McDonell | Jul 6, 2012 9:19:31 PM
Two experiments at the same laboratory are not independent.
They are both using the same system of electro magnets to accelerate particles. They use the same system of computers. They are both subject to the same gravitational field. If lightening hits it effects both experiments, etc., etc., etc.
Furthermore all the thousands of employees performing these experiments have a selfish, vested interest in the outcome because their future jobs depend on success. This possibly biases the outcomes.
This is a meaningless article which assumes members of the lay public already know what is being measured. How could they know? Why is a peak in this curve proof of existence of a "particle". How long does the "particle" live? What is its mass? What is its electric charge? What is its spin? What is its magnetic moment? Etc., How do they know these things?
Regardless of what you are told in elementary statistics classes, unlikely events happen every day and likely events fail every day all over this planet.
The only convincing proof confirming these experiments will be other totally independent experiments at totally different laboratories at different locations and different times, performed by totally different people. These results will likely be centuries off since what government is going to put up the billions of dollars to construct another similar lab and most governments in the world are broke. The only possibility is cosmic ray research which is the area which should have been persued long ago instead of accelerators. Let's not dignify all this by calling them scientists when in effect all they are are computer jockeys doing the bidding of the high priests of physics who are dictating what they do. And if any of them object to anything, you can be sure they lose their jobs immediately without advance notice.
By the way, how much radiation per day are these thousands of employees being subject to? Are they each wearing the required patch to measure the radiation?
Years ago, most of the physicists at UC Berkeley were so arrogant they refused to wear the patches to measure the accumulated radiation doses.
Here is a more significant article than this one which could have been posted http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/07/06/duke-energy-ceo-severance-bill-johnson/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D176432.
Posted by: WJAbbe | Jul 6, 2012 10:22:33 PM
What hasn't been confirmed is interesting also-- Super Symmetry, something essential for the "New Physics" (string theory).
Maybe we can abandon this visit to a box canyon, and get on with things?
Posted by: Dave Ranningdd | Jul 11, 2012 11:47:01 AM
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