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Detection of Cosmic Rays Coming Into Our Atmosphere with the Help of Some Statistics (Abstract)

Volume 31 number 1 (2003)

Rodney H. Howe

Abstract

(Abstract only) In this experiment we used a percolation algorithm and some statistical tests to explore the following null hypothesis: that the current concept in High Energy Physics is true that simultaneous clicks, with two or more detectors spaced a good distance apart (5–10 meters), are not coincidental random clicks, but are Cosmic Ray Showers from high energy protons impinging on our atmosphere at energies close to Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit. The alternative hypothesis, which in our case is the one we want to prove if the data for the null hypothesis cannot reasonably show that the null hypothesis is true, is that there is no chance that cosmic ray detection is due to chance. If there is some question about the data, i.e., there might be a chance those coincidental (simultaneous) clicks are not from cosmic rays, then the null hypothesis is false.