I don't think those physicists are making any Gaussian assumptions, right? They're computing a p-value as normal (how often would my test statistic generated under the null be more extreme than observed), and then using the Gaussian distribution as a scale to communicate how small their p-value is.
Re:Gravity waves from Big Bang detected
by gammarator on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @02:35AM
(#7427126)
They are definitely making a Gaussian assumption, and wouldn't feel the need to clarify that as it's a widely accepted convention in the field. In your restaurant analogy, it's like you overheard two chefs talking.
I'm absolutely correct in what I said.
But it appears that you are correct that that part of physics makes some Gaussian assumptions and, then, has some conventions based on those assumptions. In this case, apparently physics is not making its mathematical assumptions clear and explicit and is doing sloppy writing. For more detail, see my longer explanation in this thread
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7421505
Maybe the situation is a little like getting from a little French restaurant the recipe for French salad dressing, sauce vinaigrette, making it at home, and concluding it tasted better in the little French restaurant. Hmm .... But the French restaurant did something not in the recipe -- took a large clove of garlic, peeled it, cut it in half, and wiped the salad bowl with the cut surface of the garlic! The recipe didn't mention that!