sean writes:

On 12 May, 19:53, Craig Markwardt
wrote:
sean writes:
On 11 May, 08:50, Craig Markwardt
wrote:
sean writes:

...

It is worth noting how the swift team and other cxontributors to the
gcn network supply posts which contradict themselves and show that
beamed theory and SR and the standard model cannot explain GRB`s.

It is worth noting that your comments are erroneous. Specifically...

Note gcn6389 where a redshift of 3.5 is `observed` .

You are in error. In fact, the authors say, "the red color might
suggest a redshift of z 3.5." So they (a) never said "observed";
(b) used very tentative language implying low confidence, because (c)
it's not a spectral redshift but a photometric one taken several hours
after the burst.
I note no response to your mis-quotation of GCN #6389.
But they did `observe` How else could they have `suggested`. In fact
this is your mistake . In the first line of the copy of 6389 they
type..."We observed.."

You are mis-quoting by removing the context. At no point in that
circular do the authors say they "observed a redshift 3.5".
Instead, you are taking one word mentioned at the beginning of the
circular, "observed," and joining it with a tentative conclusion at
the end of the circular. By ignoring the rest of the text, you are
erroneously manufacturing your case.


... THen in gcn 6392
the incompetent swift team calculate a redshift of 5. As if it were
a meaningful calculation as most objects obserevd by swift and any
astronomer is usually 5.

Your comment is irrelevant. Whether or not most objects observed by
Swift have a redshift of 5, the rare ones that *do* have a redshift 5
are very interesting for many reasons. Thus
it is relevant to

know the approximate redshift of a given burst, regardless of the ones
that have come before.

I note no response.
Ill say it again then. The 3 seperate attempts at redshift
determination
were contradictory and all ultimately incorrect. ...

Actually, of the three "attempts" only the first is inconsistent with
the other two, and was based on a low confidence conclusion. Thus
your statement is irrelevant.

... In fact the grb has
no redshift
and like all others can be matched to one of the local ISM , provided
their is no
significant contamination from an unrelated galaxy in the grb`s FOV.

I note the total lack of substantiation of these claims. In fact the
redshifts of many afterglows has been firmly detected by spectroscopy,
some as high as z ~ 6.5.

Your requirement that there be no galaxy in the field of view is just
silly. In most cases where a galaxy is detected nearby, the afterglow
is found *within* the galaxy. In other cases only the afterglow has
been detected (no galaxy), but the afterglow itself can still have a
redshift measurement.


I note your irrelevant and unsubstantiated ad hominem attack on the
Swift team.

To compound the general incompetence of the observers posting to gcn
comes gcn 6398.
Here they calculate that the redshift is 2.3.

...

True, but the measurement reported by Jakobsen et al (GCN #6398) is by
a different and much more reliable technique (i.e. a high resolution
spectrum).

I note your continued ad-hominem attacks without any substantiation.

Do you get the differences in the levels of confidence in the
following statements?
* "the red color might suggest a redshift of z 3.5." #6389
* "the UVOT ... indicates a redshift of less than 5." #6392
* "a firm upper limit of z 2.3 can be placed on the redshift" #6398
Because if you can't, it might be a good time to take a refresher
course on the English language.

It seems that little has changed: you continue to make
unsubstantiated, erroneous, and irrelevant claims, and now you appear
to be adding ad hominem attacks as well. Congratulations on your
consistency.

CM

First of all one only has to look backat any of your posts in the last
few years to see
good examples of unjustified ad hominem attacks made by yourself. If
anything my post above is the exception. Whereas your filth is the
rule. ...

I note you did not substantiate your claim of "filth."
Take your unwarranted character smear regarding how you think my
English
needs improving. You `substantiate` this with the suggestion that I
misread `suggest` incorrectly as `observe`.

I don't really see how that is "filth," which would have involved
obscene language, as the word is commonly defined.

But I point out earlier this is an unsubstantiated character smear
as in fact it is you who needs to brush up on any English skills.
Because 6389 clearly has the words... "we observed" in its copy.
The words you say dont exist
Thats your substantiation

Hold on a second. Are you claiming that I am smearing your character
when I demonstrate that you erroneously quote statements out of
context? Incredible.

If you cut the unsubstantatiated personal smears youll get a polite
response from me.

... Not least because as my earlier post on this thread shows..In
many cases in the past you claimed that my predictions were incorrect
and were without proof (and you usually include a ad hominem attack
or two). In fact the supernova-grb connection and multi peaked
lightcurve predictions for all observed wavelengths I made years ago
that you claimed were untrue unsupported by evidence and without any
physics have since then been verified by not least of all, Swift
itself.

You need to be careful before you glorify yourself. Your *actual*
claim was originally that light curves at different wavelengths were
stretched replicas of each other[*]. Simply seeing flares in X-rays
is *not* a confirmation of your "prediction" unless one can prove that
the X-ray light curve is a stretched version of the gamma-ray light
curve.
I made more than one `claim` But the two I refered to above didnt
include the stretching claim. Although I stick to that and expect it
to be confirmed sooner or later by one of your peers.

Unlikely, since X-ray and gamma-ray GRB light curves from early times
can already be shown to be almost perfectly identical. These light
curves differ by a factor of ~10 in wavelength, but not a factor of
~10 in duration. (see for example the O'Brien paper, which has a
figure comparing burst durations as measured in X-rays and gamma-rays
independently).

What is relevent here is that I said that as the gamma lightcurve was
multi peaked so were all the others.

And what is the basis of your "prediction" that light curves at "other"
wavelengths would have multiple peaks?

It was you who said this was an incorrect prediction, not
backed by any observation and that any rebrightenings were within
chi squared power smoothing etc and not therefore`real` or provable.

Since I never said anything was "within chi squared power smoothing
etc," your claim is irrelevant. You are again erroneously quoting
what I wrote out of context, even though I have reiterated it multiple
times.

Since then in xray and optical it is the norm to accept that there
are multiple rebrightenings or late time flares.
So I was right and you were wrong. And its there in the google posts
for all to see.

Since I have never claimed there could not be multiple rebrightenings,
you are once again in error (once again you are mis-quoting me).
Further more, since I suspect that your "prediction" of multiple
flares is based on your "theory" of light curve stretching, which is
erroneous, it is likely that it is *you* who is incorrect.



[*] "sean" Usenet po Nov 2001


... In case the meaning of this eludes your simple mind .. as far
back as 2000 you said I was wrong to claim that all grbs did not have
a supernova connection and that all lightcurves would show variability
and late time flares . In fact I was right. ...

You should check your facts, since your claims are erroneous. First,
you yourself didn't start posting until 2001 (see Usenet thread
above). Second, I simply have never posted anything about supernovae
related to gamma-ray bursts until 2006. So please, try to withhold
your persecution complex.
Well OK,.. 2001 for your general criticism of the model which includes
an
assumed critique of the SN-GRB connection.

Hold on a second. *You* made the claim that I had been criticizing
your stance on the connection between GRBs and SNRs since 2000. Now
it is revealed that (a) you weren't even posting in 2000; (b) I didn't
discuss SNRs and GRBs together until at least 2006; and (c) all you
can point to is generic criticisms of your model with an "assumed"
critique? That is just bogus.

I note how you *invented* a story of how I was criticizing your stance
on the GRB-SNR connection since 2000 in order to create the perception
that you were being persecuted... and yet you could not substantiate
that story.

So for the record...you specifically criticise by quote the
variability in 2001 ...

Note that I didn't criticize claims of variability in general, but
rather the *amount* of variability, and the techniques used to measure
it. I did not mention supernovae.

... and you criticise my predictions of
the SN -grb connection by at least mar 28 2005 post 80.

Um, since I didn't mention supernovae once in that post, you are in
error.

Which is well before 2007 when the first acceptance by your peers that
sN-grb connection isnt a given appeared in Nature.

No, you are again inventing a controversy. There was never the
assumption in the community that GRBs were *only* caused by
supernovae. I myself gave a talk in Rome Italy (2004) discussing two
distinct models (hypernovae vs. compact object merger).

... Or the 2006
seminal paper by Stanek regarding the incorrect use
of power law smoothing of lightcurves

It's worth pointing out that the paper you are quoting does not
discuss any supernova models. And that the paper *does* in fact fit
power law models to parts of the afterglow light curve. And that the
X-ray and optical light curves match very well with no stretching.
And that late time flares had been detected in afterglow light curves
of various GRBs as far back as 1997. Hmm, seems like the situation is
not as black and white as you claimed.

I also created www.gammarayburst.com in *2000* according to my
records and it has essentially the same content now as then.

However, it was *you* who manufactured the claim that I have been
criticizing your stance on the SNR-GRB connection since 2000. When
you created your website is irrelevant to that point.

But this is obfuscation on your part as you try to distract from
the essential fact that you and others tried to prove that my models
predictions were incorrect and then had to accept later that my
predictions were correct and yours werent.

No, *you* made the claim (still quoted above) that I have been
criticizing your stance in the GRB-SNR connection since 2000. You did
it to make it sound like you were the victim. I note that you could
not substantiate that claim.


Markwardt writes on 07 Nov 2001:
: Also, as has been pointed out, trying to infer that something is a
: "peak" when the data are as noisy and as sparse as they are, is in my
: view a dubious practice. Simply "connecting the dots" will lead to *a
: possible* solution, but ultimately a very *low probability* one a
: priori.
:
: A more appropriate approach would be to start with a featureless model
: of the decline (say, a power law), then add a gaussian or some other
: simple parameterization of the putative peak. By computing the
: F-statistic, one can then find out how significant the additional peak
: is, statistically speaking, compared to the overall decline. If it's
: signficant at the 95% level, then it may be worth considering
: further.

To summarize: before you make extravagant claims, you should be able
to substantiate them with extravagant evidence. In the original
gamma-ray burst that you referred to long ago (GRB 970508), you made a
practice of picking out some statistical fluctuations and calling them
"flares." Both Martin Hardcastle and I called you on that dubious
practice.
Why was it dubious? I kept within any error margins supplied and
thats
considered acceptable. ...

You were interpreting every single statistical fluctuation as a
"flare." Since statistical fluctuations are *not* real fluctuations
of the source intensity, your method was dubious.

... And the beamed models straight line power
decays also used upper and lower ends to fit its predictions. In fact
I would argue that your power laws actually pushed the error margins
more
than my variable interpretation.

That may also be the case, but it also depends on which model would be
fitted, and which statistical test of goodness of fit was used. (you
provided neither)

... Consider that for most of the points
in my graphs I didnt have to `iron` out the variability to fit a
straight
line. Anyways since then it turns out that lightcurves indeed do have
multiple rebrightenings contrary to yours and hardcastles "call"
So the data I used and my methods werent `dubious` as you suggested.
Yours were. That is , beamed theory`s were. And still are.

As I pointed out above, I never said that flares do not exist. You
might have noticed that if you had read my *actual words*, instead of
the straw-man words you assumed.


After the launch of Swift, the situation is very different. Data from
very early times after the burst are now available, whereas they were
not before. The X-ray light curves *do* show flares, there is no
question. In other words, it is not possible to fit a smooth decay
with satisfactory goodness of fit (chi-square for example). The
present data *demand* more complicated time behavior models (in the
sense that simpler models can be statistically rejected), whereas the
older observations did not demand it.
This is exactly what I argued was the case 5 years ago. So Obviously
my interpretation of the variabilty in 970508 was correct and your
claims to the contrary were incorrect.Anyways Im glad you finally
admit
that my predictions made then have been confirmed.
Thats why I posted this to this thread. To set the record straight.

Since you could *not* prove that your claimed "flares" were
statistically required, your and my arguements are not exactly the
same. Your interpretation of the variability of 970508 was faulty
then, and it is faulty now.

Please understand, I am not saying that flares do not exist in
general. I am saying that the flares that *you claimed* to exist in
970508 were dubious at best, since they were single point statistical
fluctuations.


If you actually *read* my original post, it says exactly that: don't
add extra features unless simpler models are rejected by the data
statistically. Your original "flares" in 970508 were not really
statistically significant.
What are suggesting. That one shouldnt make correct predictions and
correct analysis of the data until the incorrect predictions and
incorrect analysis made by a flawed model like the beamed theory are
definitely proved wrong?
So much for scientific advancement.

I see that you invented another story. My criticism of your claimed
variations has *nothing* to do with gamma-ray bursts, supernovae or
beamed theories. It has everything to do with your dubious practice
of taking each single point that was a little high and calling it a
"flare." *Every* set of statistical measurements will have some high
points, but that does not mean they are real.



Getting back to your original theory...

It is clear that the X-ray flares seen by Swift *ARE NOT*
time-stretched replicas of the gamma-ray light curves.

In fact, the gamma-ray and X-ray light curves match up quite precisely
with no stretching, as shown by O'Brien et al (2006). Some of the
late-time flares seen in the X-rays are also clearly detected in
gamma-rays at the same time.

Furthermore, I have pointed out in the past that some bursts like GRB
041219A have contemporaneous optical observations which show that
there is prompt optical emission with "zero" delay ( = no stretching;
ref my post on 24 Apr 2005).
041219A is exceptional by any standards. Not least because it was
hundreds of seconds long,and more unusually had a precursor or trigger
that was at least 250 seconds before the main burst. So it gave ample
time for optical telescopes to observe while gamma is still observable
But you made up the prediction that they cannot be seen
in more than one wavelngth at one time in my model. I never claimed
this.

You are in error; I never claimed that.

... My model states that lightcurves in different wavelengths can
overlap but not *peak at the same time*. I predict they peak at later
times in longer wavelengths.

Your prediction is erroneous. I will delete your discussion of many
different GCNs since they are not really relevant. The relevant
studies are astro-ph/0503508 and astro-ph/0503521, as I pointed out
back in Apr 2005, but you ignored then (and now). These papers show
prompt optical emission with no delay or stretching.


Thus, the detection of late-time X-ray flares by Swift and prompt
optical emission does not support your "theory." In fact, since
*neither* the late time flares nor the prompt optical emission are
stretched replicas of the prompt gamma-ray burst emission, they would
tend to reject your "theory."
I dont see any direct comparison of individual xrt and bat
lightcurves
in this paper. the closest is fig 1 and here the 3 xrt/gamma
seem to always start just about the same time as BAT finishes.
Although its hard to read the detail in the graph as to whether
the XRT circles actually are on top of Bat or not. I assume
they arent.

They are overlapping. That's the point.

References
O'Brien, P. et al. 2006, New J.Phys. 8 121 (astro-ph/0605230v1)

... Observations and papers
since then havve confirmed that these miguided theoretical predictions
made by you in support of beamed theory were not consistent with
observations or later analysis.

Can you cite even *one* instance where I said that the "beamed" theory
must be true in all cases? In fact, I don't believe I *ever* argued
in favor of any "beamed" model, since I was occupied debunking your
erroneous and unstantiated claims on their face.
You were defending the use of powerlaw to describ and explain decays
in the context of beamed theory. And I was saying theis was incorrect.
And yopu were saying I was wrong and had no proof.

Actually I never "defended" the fitting of a power law to afterglow
light curves. I did recommend starting with a simple model first
(with the power law as one possible simple model), and then making the
more complicated if statistically required.

So as far as the record goes,.. in principle you were defending
beamed theory and the use of power law decays to explain afterglows
even if you never issued a formal legal document stating this.

Just because I was debunking your dubious practices does *not* mean I
was arguing for another model (such as a beamed GRB model).

And as far as debunking my "***** claims". Yes ,.. you were
attempting to show that there was or would never be seen any
variability in lightcurves

You are in error. I never made that claim, and in fact discussed many
ways to quantify the amount and structure of the variability.

But as more recent data shows your (and Hardcastles) debunk failed
and it was my models predictions not neamed theories that have
become the accepted norm.
In fact you admit as much earlier in this post...
(Craig)...
"After the launch of Swift, the situation is very different. Data
from
very early times after the burst are now available, whereas they were
not before. The X-ray light curves *do* show flares, there is no
question. In other words, it is not possible to fit a smooth decay
with satisfactory goodness of fit (chi-square for example). The
present data *demand* more complicated time behavior models (in the
sense that simpler models can be statistically rejected), whereas the
older observations did not demand it."

OK, so you agree that older GRB observations did not have many
significant flares?


... It was you who got it wrong and it was
my predictions from that time which have not only been confirmed but
stood the test of time. The same goes now for your `scientific` rating
scheme for redshift analysis. If you you think that the redshift is
definitely or firmly2.3. then you got it wrong earlier when you or
others claimed your science gave indicated it 2.3.
If your science cant tell the difference between 2.3 or greater than
2.3 then Id say your science is about as incorrect and flawed as it

...

Since I was not an author of any of the GCN circulars mentioned, I was
neither wrong nor right.

As George Dishman and I have pointed out before, the GCN system is for
rapid dissemination of (sometimes tentative) results. Thoene's lack
of a V-band detection would indeed *suggest* a higher redshift, but
with low confidence because of the less reliable measurement
technique. The later reports of a detection in V-band (which came
from earlier-time observations) ruled out the high redshift
possibility. Your problem is that you are seeing everything in black
vs. white, us vs. them terms. In fact, scientists cannot always make
rock-solid claims in the face of incomplete data, but in the case of
rapid phenomena like GRBs, it is better to make a tentative claim than
no claim at all.
I that case I suppose it was OK for me to make my claims on whatever
data
I had available at the time back in 2001. Or are you suggesting its OK
for your fave... beamed theory, to make claims on tentative data
but not OK for my theory to do so beven if it turns out that the
predictions beamed make are incorrect and mine correct?

A rapid redshift estimate is useful for the community to know
immediately; and has absolutely *nothing* to do with any theoretical
GRB model. Why are you inventing yet another controversy?

My memory from english class is this line you inadvertantly
seem to paraphrase.." All pigs are equal but some are more
equal than others."
I still assert that if you can't tell the difference between tentative
low-confidence claims, and firm or rock-solid claims just based on the
English language, you have some serious problems.
Go back and read 6389. It has the word `observed` in the copy.

Go back and read the words *between* "observed" and "redshift 3.5".
Gosh! There's a whole bunch of discussions about the technique
(photometric redshift) and the level of reliability (low)!

for a correct explanation of how there is no grb supernova connection
(contrary to the incompetent claims of beamed theorists like
Markwardt )see..

Since "Markwardt" is not a "beamed theorist," and is not even a
"theorist," your claim is non-sensical. What kind of theorist would
you claim is like a non-theorist?
Im glad to see you are finally distancing yourself from beamed
theory.
6 years after I told you to.

Since I never was a theorist, I am not distancing myself from
anything. I hold most astrophysical (and GRB) theorists in very high
regard. I was merely responding to your non-sensical assertions about
my profession.

CM