by Redbone » Tue May 10, 2011 11:57 am
A fascinating experiment, certainly. But results like this trigger skepticism. Not in the effects predicted by general relativity, which are extremely sound, but in the conduct of the experiment. Measuring infinitesimal changes to a system at the limit of accuracy should certainly cause some concern. As with accounting bias, errors that favor the bias are often overlooked, while errors that contradict the bias are almost always caught.
“first preliminary results released in April 2007 point toward a so far obtained accuracy of[56] 256–128%, with the hope of reaching about 13% in December 2007.[57] In 2008 the Senior Review Report of the NASA Astrophysics Division Operating Missions stated that it is unlikely that Gravity Probe B team will be able to reduce the errors to the level necessary to produce a convincing test of currently-untested aspects of General Relativity (including Frame-dragging).[58][59] On May 4, 2011, the Stanford-based analysis group and NASA announced that the data from GP-B demonstrate the frame-dragging effect with an error of about 19 percent.[60] The findings were accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters[61].”
So what happened between 2008 and now? That needs to be explained clearly, completely and in great detail with ample access to the data. Let some other eyes that don’t have extreme vested interests and whose careers aren’t linked to the success or failure of this project have a look at the data. We are starting to see an awful lot of marginal or just plain meaningless results being touted as significant finds simply for the sake of publication and career advancement.
A fascinating experiment, certainly. But results like this trigger skepticism. Not in the effects predicted by general relativity, which are extremely sound, but in the conduct of the experiment. Measuring infinitesimal changes to a system at the limit of accuracy should certainly cause some concern. As with accounting bias, errors that favor the bias are often overlooked, while errors that contradict the bias are almost always caught.
“first preliminary results released in April 2007 point toward a so far obtained accuracy of[56] 256–128%, with the hope of reaching about 13% in December 2007.[57] In 2008 the Senior Review Report of the NASA Astrophysics Division Operating Missions stated that it is unlikely that Gravity Probe B team will be able to reduce the errors to the level necessary to produce a convincing test of currently-untested aspects of General Relativity (including Frame-dragging).[58][59] On May 4, 2011, the Stanford-based analysis group and NASA announced that the data from GP-B demonstrate the frame-dragging effect with an error of about 19 percent.[60] The findings were accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters[61].”
So what happened between 2008 and now? That needs to be explained clearly, completely and in great detail with ample access to the data. Let some other eyes that don’t have extreme vested interests and whose careers aren’t linked to the success or failure of this project have a look at the data. We are starting to see an awful lot of marginal or just plain meaningless results being touted as significant finds simply for the sake of publication and career advancement.