MrMind comments on Open thread, Sep. 12 - Sep. 18, 2016 - Less Wrong

1 Post author: MrMind 12 September 2016 06:49AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (110)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: morganism 16 September 2016 11:56:56PM 2 points [-]

KIC 8462852 models that fit Kepler observations quite well

"I have proposed a type of model that is mathematically simple and, with slight variations, is able to produce excellent fits for all the major brightness drops observed in Tabby's star. If this is the correct type of model — its goodness of fit is highly encouraging — the following hypotheses should be considered:

1) Tabby's star has one ore more partially constructed Niven Rings. All partial rings are likely in the same orbital plane and possibly the same orbit.

2) Tabby's star hosts a Dyson Swarm, and some objects in the swarm cluster alongside shared orbits, with an object distribution given by an approximation of a Monod equation. Perhaps the distribution is intentional in D800, and meant to be a beacon.

3) We might be looking at the birth of an accretion disk, or a partial accretion disk. Perhaps Tabby's star is being slowly swallowed by another star or a black hole. Perhaps there's a natural reason why disk material would approximate a Monod distribution, quite perfectly sometimes, and chaotically on different occasions."

http://www.science20.com/indepth_analytics/blog/kic_8462852_models_that_fit_kepler_observations_quite_well-180403

Comment author: MrMind 26 September 2016 08:07:52AM 0 points [-]

Goodness of fit is good, but goodness of prediction is really better.
The fact that you need to add parameters after each drop is not encouraging, but obviously it might be better than any alternatives. Have you published the detail of those equations?