[meteorite-list] Gravitational Waves or Just Space Dust?

[Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum]

Yet another rush for publicity before you get debunked:


http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/04/gravitational-wave-discovery-dust-big-bang-inflation


Gravitational waves turn to dust after claims of flawed analysis
Astronomers who thought they had detected echoes of the big bang may have 
only seen the effects of space dust
It was hailed as one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 
century, the birth of a new era in physics and a shoo-in for a Nobel prize.

The claim from Harvard University that it had discovered gravitational 
waves - and thereby evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation and the 
existence of a multiverse - caused a worldwide sensation in March. But the 
celebrations are now looking decidedly premature.

Rather than securing a trip to Stockholm to receive a Nobel medal, the 
Harvard team may have detected nothing more than space dust.

Writing in the journal Nature on Wednesday, Paul Steinhardt, director of the 
Centre for Theoretical Physics at Princeton University, argues that the 
Harvard team made an unfortunate blunder in its calculations. "Serious flaws 
in the analysis have been revealed that transform the sure detection into no 
detection," he writes.

Cosmologists working on Harvard's Bicep2 (Background Imaging of Cosmic 
Extragalactic Polarization) telescope at the south pole unveiled their 
surprise discovery at a press conference at Harvard, before they had 
published their results in a peer-reviewed journal. The purpose of 
independent vetting by peer reviewers is to catch flawed studies before they 
become part of the scientific literature.



Phil Whitmer

Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum