News from the BOSS
No April Fool’s from me today I’m afraid!
New results from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (known to its friends as BOSS) were one of the highlights of the National Astronomy Meeting last week (which I wasn’t at) and they’ve received quite a lot of press attention over the past few days. Rather than repeat what’s been said I thought I’d reblog this lengthy piece, which gives a lot of detail and is also written by an insider!
I wrote the following post yesterday, but I fell asleep before I could do anything with it. It’s about the first set of results from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), part of Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III project, which we announced to the science community and to the press yesterday. How this whole project was picked up by the press in a way I hadn’t anticipated is the matter for another post. What really matters is the science, and the science – if you don’t mind my exceedingly biased opinion – is just excellent.
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I’m now making my way back home from this year’s National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) 2012 in Manchester. I love NAM. It’s always a chance to see old friends and listen to good science, to catch up on gossip and long-promised pints. This year, I did almost none of these things. The reason is that one…
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In the Dark 
April 1, 2012 at 7:24 pm
What is clear is that, following the forced resigantion of Antonio Eridato, nobody will dare to publish a result which challenges the orthodox view of cosmology ever again. Not that Eridato’s result was necessarily right, but he had every right to publish it and does not deserve the opprobrium which has come his way. Cue decades of stagnation.
Its at time like this that you almost have sympathy for Delingpole. Almost, but not quite.
April 1, 2012 at 7:33 pm
I don’t agree, and don’t get the leap from particle experiment to cosmology either. I hope and believe that people will continue to challenge orthodoxy. What happened with the OPERA fiasco is that the competence of the entire set-up was called into question and, for that, I think the person responsible was right to resign.
April 1, 2012 at 7:38 pm
The OPERA result, had it been correct, would have had profound implications for cosmology. The people calling into question the competence of the OPERA setup were people with a strong emotional attachment to orthodoxy. The parallels are direct.
April 1, 2012 at 7:58 pm
I don’t have a “strong emotional attachment to orthodoxy”, I just think scientists should do their job properly.
April 1, 2012 at 8:12 pm
So do I Peter. But if someone publishes a result, with a cautionary note saying that there are possible systematic errors and that the team are still investigating them, then they do investigate them and find that one is real, I would not accuse them of “not doing their job properly”.
April 1, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Had it been an extremely subtle thing they’d overlooked I would agree. But not checking the cables? That’s just lame. In my opinion.
April 2, 2012 at 10:31 am
I am not criticising Peter, originally I was criticising those who had pressured Eridatato into resigning, Peter appears to support them. Nor am I criticising BOSS, they have announced what they have found, which is fine. What if what they had found had challenged or rejected orthodoxy? Would they have dared to publish? Would the refereeing system have allowed them to publish? Would they have reduced their chances of funding for their next experimental project?
By using phrases such as “standard paradigm” you already prejudice discussion.
April 1, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Antonio Ereditato, sorry.