Related papers: How often does theory match experiment?
In science, as in life, `surprises' can be adequately appreciated only in the presence of a null model, what we expect a priori. In physics, theories sometimes express the values of dimensionless physical constants as combinations of…
Suppose we are given the conditional probability of one variable given some other variables.Normally the full joint distribution over the conditioning variablesis required to determine the probability of the conditioned variable.Under what…
We consider prediction theory for stationary stochastic processes in continuous time. We discuss prediction using the whole (infinite) past, and using only a finite section of the past. The solutions to both these classical problems have…
Standard inference about a scalar parameter estimated via GMM amounts to applying a t-test to a particular set of observations. If the number of observations is not very large, then moderately heavy tails can lead to poor behavior of the…
We propose a multi-scale extension of conformal prediction, an approach that constructs prediction sets with finite-sample coverage guarantees under minimal statistical assumptions. Classic conformal prediction relies on a single notion of…
For frequentist settings in which parameter randomness represents variability rather than uncertainty, the ideal measure of the support for one hypothesis over another is the difference in the posterior and prior log odds. For situations in…
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
The theory of probability, based on very general rules referred to as the Cox-Polya-Jaynes Desiderata, can be used both as a theory of random mass phenomena and as a quantitative theory of plausible inference about the parameters of…
The nature of the scientific method is controversial with claims that a single scientific method does not even exist. However the scientific method does exist. It is the building of logical and self consistent models to describe nature. The…
A physical (e.g. astrophysical, geophysical, meteorological etc.) data may appear as an output of an experiment or it may contain some sociological, economic or biological information. Whatever be the source of a time series data some…
There are many randomness notions. On the classical account, many of them are about whether a given infinite binary sequence is random for some given probability. If so, this probability turns out to be the same for all these notions, so…
Program review in the physical sciences may benefit from a framework within which to quantitatively discuss the scientific merit of a proposed theoretical program of research, and to assess the scientific merit of a particular theoretical…
An agent often has a number of hypotheses, and must choose among them based on observations, or outcomes of experiments. Each of these observations can be viewed as providing evidence for or against various hypotheses. All the attempts to…
Confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret information in a way that aligns with one's preconceptions, can profoundly impact scientific research, leading to conclusions that reflect the researcher's hypotheses even when the observational…
The non-scientific event of a soccer match is analysed on a strictly scientific level. The analysis is based on the recently introduced concept of a team fitness (Eur. Phys. J. B 67, 445, 2009) and requires the use of finite-size scaling. A…
Natural and social multivariate systems are commonly studied through sets of simultaneous and time-spaced measurements of the observables that drive their dynamics, i.e., through sets of time series. Typically, this is done via hypothesis…
Forecasting can estimate the statement of events according to the historical data and it is considerably important in many disciplines. At present, time series models have been utilized to solve forecasting problems in various domains. In…
It is widely believed that theory is useful in physics because it describes simple systems and that strictly empirical phenomenological approaches are necessary for complex biological and social systems. Here we prove based upon an analysis…
When designing and evaluating an experiment or observational study, it is useful to have a realistic hypothesis regarding the average treatment effect. We present an approach to conceptualizing this average by first considering a…
Ratios of universal enumerable semimeasures corresponding to hypotheses are investigated as a solution for statistical composite hypotheses testing if an unbounded amount of computation time can be assumed. Influence testing for discrete…