A Discovery in Physics

[Rade]

At the reference link below is this statement--
Physicists have agreed that claims of a discovery must have a confidence level of 99.99995 percent, indicating a 99.99995 percent chance that the result can be reproduced.
Is this view held, and in what publication was this 'agreed to' ? And, does theory of Quantum Mechanics meet this criterion--that is, have experimental attempts to falsify QM (say, loophole experiments) reached a CL of 99.99995 percent ? Just asking, not trying to cause heartburn.

Reference Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/dnal-wht032306.php

[vanesch]

Is this view held, and in what publication was this 'agreed to' ? And, does theory of Quantum Mechanics meet this criterion--that is, have experimental attempts to falsify QM (say, loophole experiments) reached a CL of 99.99995 percent ? Just asking, not trying to cause heartburn.


This probably (didn't check) comes down to the "5 sigma" requirement before something can be called a result.
If a measurement is performed with known *statistical* errors, it's kind of a convention that a hypothesis is rejected when it is 5 or more sigma away from it. But this only talks about the statistical error (mostly due to counting statistics). It doesn't say anything about other potential sources of error.