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Is It the 'Same' Result: Replication in Physics

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Replication, the independent confirmation of experimental results and conclusions, is regarded as the “gold standard” in science. This book examines the question of successful or failed replication...
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  • 30 October 2018
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Replication, the independent confirmation of experimental results and conclusions, is regarded as the “gold standard” in science. This book examines the question of successful or failed replications and demonstrates that answering that question is not always easy. It presents clear examples of successful replications – the discoveries of the Higgs boson and of gravity waves – and failed replications, including early experiments on the fifth force, a proposed modification of Newton’s Law of universal gravitation and the measurements of “G”, the constant in that law. Other case studies illustrate some of the difficulties and complexities in deciding whether a replication is successful or failed. The text also discusses how that question has been answered. These studies include the “discovery” of the pentaquark in the early 2000s and the continuing search for neutrinoless double beta decay and it argues that although successful replication is the goal of scientific experimentation, it is not always easily achieved.
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Price: £41.56
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Imprint: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Publication Date: 30 October 2018
ISBN: 9781643271613
Format: eBook
BISACs:

SCIENCE / Physics / General, SCIENCE / Applied Sciences, SCIENCE / Research & Methodology

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Contents
1 Introduction
I Successful Replications 2 The Discovery of the Higgs Boson 3 The Discovery of Gravity Waves 3.1 The Binary Pulsar 3.2 The Binary Black Hole Merger 4 The Scattering of Antineutrons by Protons
II Failed Replications 5 Is There a Fifth Force? 5.1 Thieberger’s Experiment 5.2 The Eӧt-Wash Experiment 5.3 Discussion 5.4 A Bayesian Interlude 6 Is There a Universal Gravitational Constant? 6.1 Measurements of G 6.2 A Curious Correlation?
III. Problems, Large and Small 7 Physical Constants and the Properties of Elementary Particles 8 Millikan’s Measurements of the Charge of the Electron 8.1 The 1911 Experiment 8.2 The 1913 Experiment 9 Are There Low-Mass Electron-Positron States? 9.1 Positron Lines 9.2 Electron-Positron States 10 The Pentaquark 10.1 The Experimental Results 10.2 Discussion 11 Whose Neutrino Is It, Majorana’s or Dirac’s? 11.1 The Problem 11.2 The Early Experiments 11.3 The Second Generation Experiments 11.4 Discussion 12 Conclusion