“Right.” A cynical smile angled her mouth. His hurried question was clearly too trivial to merit her upright attention; she shrugged and tilted farther onto her forearm. Her sweater slouched with her. Its neckline slid off her collarbones to reveal the narrow strap of a camisole. “I understand your confusion. This can be difficult for non-specialists to understand. And also for people who don’t make their data publicly available.”
“I’m not confused, Monaghan. I’m asking—”
“Yes, thank you for your interest. I separate the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory’s signals from local noise by transforming the positive and negative deviances of my data into frequencies. Prior data points in the public research pool from LIGO’s branches in southeastern Washington State and Livingston, Louisiana—which are already confirmed as originating from astrophysical movements—indicate the Hertz frequencies that I should expect to see from colliding black holes and their destruction of nearby stars. Once I’ve run a Fourier transform on my data to configure its deviances as frequencies, any valid signals are clear from the noise.” She adjusted her glasses, eyebrows raised, daring him to continue when she’d closed the subject.
But he hadn’t finished.
Dr. Kramer was watching.
And she’d given him an opening.
“You’re using data that you haven’t generated yourself. How do you verify its accuracy? If the data at LIGO’s other sites is incorrect, your own analysis will be faulty.”
“My analyses are perfect.”
“Is thedatain your analyses perfect? Not just SVLAC’s measurements, but the database where you’re pulling your controls?”
“Well, I don’t check my colleagues’ research like we’re still in graduate school,” and now she straightened. Her second shrug was more of a jerk. “But when possible, I verify my own signal observations with telescope data. Maybe you’ve heard of multimessenger astronomy?”
“So you rely on fallible visuals.”
“Visuals from specialized telescopic astrophotography cameras.”
“Which are maintained by someone else. Manned by someone else. Generating images taken by someone else. You’re relying on this, and public data.”
“Fine, yes. But are we discussing science right now? Or philosophy? Because your questions aren’t really about my methodology. Are they? This is about whether I trust my colleagues in the field—”
“Science isn’t based on trust.”
“—and about whether I believe that anyone else is using brain cells while they work!” Color pinched over her cheekbones.
“Science is based on facts,” he retorted, calm and logical under Dr. Kramer’s eyes. It didn’t matter that his ears were warm. “Justifications for sloppy, unempirical processes liketrustbecome justifications for sloppy research. Dirty results.”
“Except that my research and results are obviously acceptable, because my sole-author paper on tidal disruption events is—”
“—based on inputs that you haven’t independently verified. I’d consider a retraction before it goes to print. Publishing fraudulent data, Monaghan? That’s career suicide, even for—”
“Excuse me.What?” Her amplified words and the screeching pivot of her chair reverberated across the auditorium. Erin stood, sweater falling down the exposed curve of her shoulder when she abandoned her microphone to face him head on. “Fraud?What are you—”
“Um!That’s all the time we have for departmental updates today!” An administrative assistant at the podium gave an awkward wave, attempting to redirect the room’s focus from Erin, breathing hard under the slanted projector beam with a glittering nimbus of pixels and dust in her hair. “Thank you, Dr. Kramer, Dr. Van Buskirk, and Dr. Fong. We’ll close today with an announcement from Dr. Schulz. Dr. Schulz, if you’d come to the stage?”
As Erin sank slowly back into her seat, static from the assistant’s adjustment of the microphone almost muffled the noise of a pair of hands clapping somewhere in the auditorium.
Almost.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Heat crept from Ethan’s ears into his neck. Chafing at the discomfort, he turned away from Dr. Kramer’s encore nod and Szymanski’s watchful frown—to Erin again, who was pulling her sweater back into place, cramming her laptop into her backpack with her head bowed, ponytail falling over her shoulder. She swept it away in irritation. She was biting her lip.
Had she also heard the clapping?
And his accusation:fraudulent data.
She’d definitely heard that…
“Well done, Meyer.”Dr. Kramer.
“Uh—thank you.”
