On Friday, November 14, 2014 3:06:17 PM UTC-5, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
A measured mass of 145.0725 +/- 0.0001 is highly unrealistic. Such
narrow error bars on such a large stellar mass are hard to imagine. ...

Thanks for missing the point. The point was that you are dividing by
an artificially large number to make the result look like better
agreement with your quantization than there really is. I just took it
to absurdity to demonstrate the point. (i.e. that a mass completely
inconsistent with 0.145 Msun and yet looks like an excellent match
according to your arithmetic)

Also, would you prefer that I not divide by 2.61 and instead just say
the error is 0.0034 solar mass?

I would prefer that a real statistical test be performed. Which is
what I did. A chi-square test excludes 0.145 Msun quantization with
100% confidence [**].

In terms of the actual mass of J1906+0746, I would think an accuracy
of +/- 0.01 solar mass is a reasonable uncertainty to hope for at
present.

I see what you did there. You picked an uncertainty just large enough
to be consistent with your model, but not too large compared to 0.145
that makes it completely ambiguous. Talk about wishful thinking. But
the truth is that there is no quantitative rationale to the
uncertainty you hope for.

CM

[**] Really (100-1e-27)% = 99.999999999999999999999999999% confidence.