RE: June 17th, 2020 - a great discovery in (astro)particle physics?
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Thank you for your explanation on the sigma values. The basis of them always eluded me.
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You are viewing a single comment's thread:
Thank you for your explanation on the sigma values. The basis of them always eluded me.
It is in fact related to the normal distribution (i.e. standard deviations). You can check the wikipedia page where it is not too badly explained.
Thank you I’ll check that out. I’m accustomed to standard deviations in the production labs I’ve worked though I don’t see standards like 5 sigma applied at all. I’ve only applied them to equipment performance for water or radiochemistry. I guess when I read the terms “particle physics” and sigma values it adds an allure of complexity to the degree that someone like myself would assume it would be difficult to understand.
Particle physics is actually much more strict on what is required for a claim than any other fields. In medicine, I have for instance already seen a 2sigma taken as sufficient for claiming something. In our case, with two sigma, we can only make exclusions (roughly).
I can certainly see that in my past day to day activities as a lab tech. The things we test for and the trends we analyze are for concepts proven through probably your area of work. The equipment I’ve used is now standardized in the commercial nuclear industry. So I can see then how our sigma values are not required to be as restrictive as your industry.
Totally: the requirement in precision is connected to the pursued goal.
Here, in the context of (astro)particle physics experimental research, we are talking about making claims about the functioning of the universe. This makes sense to rely on more stringent standards than for industrial applications in any domain.