The Drift by Sanford Lab, where our
researchers answer your giant science
questions in bite-sized videos. Submit
your questions via direct message on
Facebook Instagram and Twitter. So what
do you do when you apply to your
analysis cuts, you remove the salt from
your data, you have your final dataset and it
looks like there's a real dark matter
signal in there? Well you have to go and
do some statistics. To be able to claim
discovery of dark matter we must reach a
certain level of statistical
significance. The general standard for
claiming a discovery is called "5 Sigma"
and 5 Sigma in simple terms means that
the chances of seeing data like we
collected, but not being dark matter, is 1
in 3 and a half million. So it's a pretty
high standard, you have to be really
really sure to be able to claim a
discovery. Determining the Sigma of a
dataset depends on a lot of things. It's a
complicated statistical analysis. But
mostly, you have to really understand
your background. So this was the
interactions of all the other particles
that aren't dark matter and this is
because random background fluctuations
could possibly mimic a dark matter
signal this is why we have to be so
careful and reach that 5 Sigma.
