States Chronicle - Latest Breaking World News

Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Log in
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
  • Investor Relations
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Latest News
    • Right Colors for your Skin Tone
    • MOST ACTIVE NASDAQ After-Hours
    • iPhone 5C Release Date
    • Samsung Galaxy S5 Release Date
    • The History of the Atkins Diet

Billionaire Accuses NASA of Bad Science

May 25, 2016 By Deborah Cobing Leave a Comment

Email, RSS Follow
"Billionaire"
Billionaire Nathan Myhrvold at a talk

STATES CHRONICLE – Billionaire Nathan Myhrvold, ex-Microsoft mogul accuses NASA of making fundamental errors when estimating asteroid size.

This is not the first critic the techie brings to any study. In 2013, he pointed the finger at a research describing dinosaur rate growth and indicated the study’s flaws.

The billionaire dinosaur geek has a new obsession which has brought us at the crossroads of this news article: asteroids.

The CEO of Intellectual Ventures says scientist reading data from a popular NASA space telescope have made critical errors in assessing the size of a lot of asteroids; 157,000 to be precise.

Myhrvold aimed at the data provided by the satellite telescope Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) launched in 2009 and its NEOWISE follow-up mission which compared to other observatories around the world, have discovered the most asteroids.

In his paper posted on arXiv.org, the billionaire says none of the NASA’s work from the WISE and NEOWISE can be replicated.

In more technical terms, although the teams claimed to have determined the asteroids diameters with a 10% (better) accuracy, the techie says they ignored the margin error when they extrapolated the results to an entire population.

He also noted that the NASA scientists did not include the Kirchoff law in their thermal models. The errors in the asteroid size reach about 30 percent, but in some cases go as high as 300 percent.

The billionaire has submitted this work to the Icarus journal for a review.

NASA’s principal investigator for the WISE mission, Ned Wright, fights back and responds that if he’d have a “bounty” for “every mistake” found in Myhrvold’s paper, he’d “get rich.” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration specialist stands by the results his team has gathered and states that their data is confirmed by two other telescopes, the infrared AKARI and IRAS telescopes.

Another NASA specialist, Amy Mainzer says the billionaire’s paper is full of goofs, one of them being confusing diameter with radius in one formula.

Myhrvold answered NASA’s criticism stating he’ll correct these “cosmetic” errors and will prove his points still stand. He also believes the reason the named teams are “so defensive” is because they are involved in a new proposal for a future telescope.

Write adds Nathan Myhrvold is responsible for a lot of “bad software” which might be partly to blame for his computer codes turning bad results.

Image source: Flickr

Email, RSS Follow

Filed Under: Science Tagged With: AKARI, arXiv.org, asteroid diameter estimation, billionaire critic, billionaire criticizes NASA, Icarus journal, infrared telescopes, IRAS, NASA asteroid missions, Nathan Myhrvold, NEOWISE, replicated data errors, statistical errors, tech mogul, thermal law, thermal models, WISE

About Deborah Cobing

The two C’s that best describe Deborah are calm and calculated. When she was younger she was fiercely determined to become a doctor. That was until she actually got into medicine school. After two years of university she realized that she wasn’t quite cut out for the job. She quickly halted her studies and decided to pursue a career in writing instead.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 30 other subscribers

Doom and MiniDoom 2

Volunteer-Based Mexican Studio Releases Sidescrolling Doom Clone

March 12, 2018 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

Chinese Mom and locked iPhone.

Toddler Locks Chinese Mom Out of Phone for Half a Century

March 9, 2018 By James Faulkner Leave a Comment

Alexa laughing

Amazon Alexa Laughing out of the Blue Puzzles Engineers

March 8, 2018 By Jack M. Robinson Leave a Comment

Flippy and the Burgers

Meet Flippy, World’s First Fast-Food Robotic Chef

March 6, 2018 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

System Shock

System Shock Remastered Delayed, Nightdive Studios CEO Announces

February 19, 2018 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Sea of Thieves.

Sea of Thieves Optimized for Low-End PCs

February 14, 2018 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

Sony and VR

Sony Touts New Generation of VR Controllers

January 31, 2018 By Deborah Cobing Leave a Comment

YouTube

YouTube Stiffens Its Monetization Policy to Discourage Spammers and Bad Actors

January 18, 2018 By Georgia Dawson Leave a Comment

Google Art Doppelganger

Google App Can Now Show Your Art Doppelganger

January 15, 2018 By Troy Rubenson Leave a Comment

YouTube mobile app logo on a smartphone

YouTube Now Enables Vertical Videos on iOS

December 24, 2017 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Samsung Galaxy S2 with a shattered screen

Cracked Smartphone Screens Are a Thing of the Past – Self-Healing Polymer Gets Fixed Just by Pressing It

December 20, 2017 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Bing logo on a white background

Bing Improves Its Search Results with the Help of AI and Reddit Integration

December 16, 2017 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

White hashtag on a blue background

Follow Your Interests on Instagram by Directly Following Hashtags

December 14, 2017 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge on a leather seat

Samsung Galaxy Smartphones Make More People Happier as Compared to iPhones

December 13, 2017 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Related Articles

  • the Carina Nebula in space

    The Universe is Full of Space Grease (Study)

    Jun 29, 2018
  • St. George the dragon slayer

    Restoration Makes 16th-Century Spanish Statue Unrecognizable

    Jun 28, 2018
  • Elon Musk

    After Recent Alien Study, Elon Musk Thinks We Should Colonize Other Planets

    Jun 27, 2018
  • the red planet

    Large Blue Sand Dune Discovered on Mars

    Jun 27, 2018
  • two gibbon individuals

    Extinct Gibbon Species Found in Ancient Chinese Tomb (Study)

    Jun 26, 2018
  • Mars panorama

    Dust Storm on Mars is Only Getting Bigger

    Jun 25, 2018
  • asteroid approaching Earth

    America is Not Ready for an Asteroid Impact

    Jun 22, 2018
  • Christopher Columbus

    Real Christopher Columbus Letter Returns to Vatican, Mystery Persists

    Jun 20, 2018
  • sea with beach full of pebbles

    Fossil of Ancient Sea Creature Named After Obama

    Jun 20, 2018
  • Aztec turquoise

    Where Did the Aztec Turquoise Come From? (Study)

    Jun 18, 2018

Categories

  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Markets
  • National News
  • Nature
  • News
  • Politics
  • Science
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized
  • World

Copyright © 2021 statechronicle.com

About · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Contact

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more.