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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

Would be really interesting to read a undergrad level piece on how they exclude [systematic] errors ... that accuracy makes me wonder many things, like what temperatures they're using and what the expansivity of common materials (steel, say) at those temps. What's the contraction (expansion) per km of the Earth like, can you detect flexing in the crust?

/lazy-digression

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Don't be bashful, email one of the people listed in the papers. There's surely some published research with names attached.

Be clear, don't be verbose, be polite, and be grateful, thanking them for their time and contributions. Be sure to mention that the award was what triggered your curiosity.

Also, make sure to ask them to put you in touch with the right person, if they aren't the right person. You're probably looking for someone with 'materials' near their name. There may also be a coordinator for the project. If so, first try them.

Seriously, go ahead and ask. Chances are, you're even welcome to ask follow up questions. I'm retired but I always enjoyed it when people legitimately wanted to know more about what I was doing. It was only a problem if I was busy, but I still made time. It just sometimes took a while.

Yes this is so important. These are professors and from all the physicists I have ever met they are all incredible open to questions. Remember that these people sit there and think about these problems all day so they love talking about them. Just be polite and especially verbose.

Not too verbose, would be my recommendation. Though, that may be because I have the tendency to be rather wordy and I suspect they are currently all pressed for time.

This is the third time it has come up recently, at least for my comments. I really lament the quashing of the citizen scientist idea.

I'm technically a scientist, albeit retired. I don't want a pedestal, nor an ivory tower. Someone mentioned that they weren't a real scientist. Yes, yes you are - so long as you follow the method.

Scientists aren't ordained. They are just people following a set of rules established by the Philosophy of Science. Anyone can follow those rules.

I encourage everyone to try to apply them to learning new things. I encourage them to get involved, to experiment, and to share their results. Ask questions. Ask for data. Ask why.

Intellectual curiosity is one of our species' defining traits. Giving that up and just accepting answers goes against the principles of science.

There are very, very good odds that they'll get the data they want, so long as they find the correct person. On a project this large, they should be able to find that person.

I would up-vote this a hundred times if I could. More awareness of the power of the scientific method, in general, would be a good thing for the world.

Don't only ask, test! Build a hypothesis and test it until it breaks. Make a better one. Break it. Rinse, repeat.

You might have an easier time getting a hold of Gabriela Gonzalez, the head of one of the LIGO sites, or a project scientist there. I can probably put you in touch with some people in Livingston (email is HN name at gmail)

Very valid point and I earnestly hope that they see your post and take full advantage of the opportunity.

I am/was unfamiliar with these specific researchers and only know the research through popular science. So, I am unable to give them specifics.

I'm a mathematician, not a physicist. My interest is purely curiosity. Well, that and I like to encourage the citizen scientist.

I second that. While the people in the limelight will probably get a ton of requests right now and might not find time to answer, the "lower" ranks will.

I'm a scientist myself, and it's always nice to get feedback/questions from interested people outside of the community, especially if they are not peddling their pet "theory" and are honestly willing to learn, read papers etc.

It is too late to edit it. If I could, I'd change it to suggest they not be more verbose than absolutely needed. Put time and effort into writing it, as they will be putting time and effort int responding to it. That time can be used to ensure the grammar is acceptable, the questions clear, and the message as concise as it can reasonably be.

Given the popularity of this project, and all the media attention, I suspect they are fairly busy.

Like you, though past-tense, I loved having interested people contact me for more information. I didn't even mind if they were also my business competition. Sometimes, the projects I worked on had a public face and yet was great - but it sometimes reached the point where it was eating into my limited time.

I'm more than happy to share what I know, what I am doing, and how I got there. What I was doing was innovative and there was more business than we could reasonably handle. (I helped move traffic modeling to the computer age and would later expand into pedestrian traffic modeling.)

LIGO collaboration member here. We're delighted to take questions from the public - just email question@ligo.org!

I figured you were absolutely willing to take questions from the general public.

Now, the average person seems woefully unaware of this. To them, the science and scientists seem unapproachable. They've stacked scientists up on a pedestal and fashioned imaginary ivory towers for them.

As a scientist, I have countless examples of such.

So, how do we let people know that you'd be delighted to take questions? Maybe one of those live BBC science specials would be in order? Something like that?

For all the marchers who believe in science, so few seem aware that they can practice it and be a part of it. They aren't even aware that they can be published without affiliation or a degree. Sure, it is harder, but they can and they can contribute.

I am particularly impressed by the efforts of the rest of my colleagues when it comes to public outreach. Our members attend loads of local events around the world, sharing LIGO outreach material across the collaboration; members are often invited to talk at science clubs and societies; we conduct Reddit AMAs after each detection announcement [1-3] and tweet to the public about the goings-on. There are even apps [4]! Two other things we've gotten a lot of positive feedback for are our open science center [5], which has tutorials where you can conduct essentially the same analysis we did in our discovery on the same data (using Python notebooks), and Gravity Spy [6], which lets the public hunt for glitches in our data (a new type of glitch was identified by the public, showing how important it can be!).

So, while we can always do more to reach out to the public who fund our work, I feel like I'm surrounded by colleagues who are really passionate and dedicated to interacting with the public!

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/45g8qu/we_are_the_lig...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4odza8/we_are_the_lig...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6fekz5/science_ama...

[4] https://www.laserlabs.org/spacetimequest.php

[5] http://losc.ligo.org/

[6] https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/gravity-spy

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