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Comment by chime | Hacker News Reader

Atlas is still presenting. So let's wait and see what they came up with. 4.9σ was just from CMS.

Edit: It is worth noting that 125GeV fits well within Fermilab's recent announcement: http://news.discovery.com/space/tevatron-data-detects-higgs-...

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She is working the crowd, so to speak. Here is the final CERN press release, which claims a 5 sigma result:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR...

I think these physicists have been watching too many Steve Jobs presentations. "4.9σ... Oh, but one more thing!" ;)

In all seriousness, does anyone know how common it is to do this kind of gradual reveal during scientific presentations vs. stating your basic final results in the introduction? It's kind of fun, but you could cut the tension in that room with a knife!

The way they handled it was perfect. For over 20 minutes each, the presenters for CMS and Atlas explained their measurement capabilities, methods, recent improvements, and recorded measurements before stating their conclusion. They made sure to cover their bases and justify the conclusion before making a big announcement. I'm pretty sure the abstract for the papers will state the conclusion early on but the initial announcement for the greatest achievement in Particle Physics shouldn't be prefaced with "We found it!" just for the convenience of the impatient.

The bravado comes from an ego and pride in ones self worth, not from Jobs' keynotes.

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