Beyond the discovery threshold

By Neutrino Energy 22 May 2026

Neutrinovoltaics: far more than a theoretical footnote

A coin that lands heads three times in a row seems completely normal. Even ten times in a row would be unusual, but possible. But if the same coin lands heads 29 times in a row, perception begins to change. At this point hardly anyone thinks of chance any more.

The probability of a normal coin landing heads 29 times in a row is roughly one in 500 million. In other words, it would be statistically much more plausible to assume that something systematic is behind it than to keep believing in pure chance. This is exactly where the way of thinking on which modern science is built begins.

Science works with probabilities. So the central question is: how likely is it that an observed result arose purely by chance?

What a sigma value actually means

To answer this question, science uses so-called sigma values. Sigma describes the statistical distance of a result from what would be expected by chance. The higher the sigma value, the lower the probability that an observed effect is merely statistical noise.

A sigma value of 1 means only a slight anomaly. The result could be real – or not.
At sigma 2 the pattern becomes stronger. The probability of chance is then still about one in 22.
From sigma 3, the scientific community starts to pay attention. Results at this level are already regarded as serious indications and often lead to publications and further investigations.
Sigma 4 is regarded as strong evidence. The probability of chance falls to about one in 31,000. Journals and research institutions begin to examine such results intensively.

The decisive threshold, however, lies at sigma 5.

From this point on, physicists no longer speak of an indication or a conjecture, but officially of a discovery. The probability that a result at this level arose merely by chance is only about one in 3.5 million. This threshold was established internationally to rule out misinterpretations of statistical fluctuations.

A result of sigma 5.9 to 6.0 lies even well above this. Here the probability of chance falls to roughly one in 500 million – a level that leaves practically no room for reasonable statistical doubt.

Why physics introduced this threshold

The so-called “discovery threshold” originally arose in particle physics. Research facilities such as CERN analyse billions of particle collisions and look for extremely rare signals within huge amounts of data. In the past, low significance values repeatedly led to supposed discoveries that later turned out to be statistical illusions.

That is why the scientific community agreed on sigma 5 as the minimum standard for real discoveries.

The best-known example is the Higgs boson. For years, physicists only spoke of “hints” or “interesting excesses”. Only when two independent detector systems simultaneously crossed the sigma 5 threshold was a discovery officially announced. The language changed abruptly – because the statistics no longer allowed any reasonable alternative.

Exactly this statistical methodology is now also being applied to the work of the Neutrino® Energy Group.

The Schubart master formula: the question of ambient energy

At the centre of the study is the so-called Schubart master formula, developed by Holger Thorsten Schubart, mathematician and systems architect of the Neutrino® Energy Group. The formula describes mathematically how ambient energy from neutrinos, cosmic muons, electromagnetic background fields and thermal fluctuations could be converted into electrical energy via specially developed nanomaterials.

The underlying equation is:

P (t) = η \int_{V} Φ_{a m b} (r, t) σ_{e f f} (E) d V

Put simply, this formula describes the interaction between ambient energy and a nanomaterial architecture of graphene and silicon layers. The crucial point is that the physical processes used do not come from speculative assumptions, but from research already experimentally confirmed by independent institutions.

The COHERENT experiment, for example, confirmed the real existence of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. CONUS+ extended these findings to energy ranges relevant to solar neutrinos. In parallel, Professor Paul Thibado at the University of Arkansas showed that graphene membranes can actually convert thermal ambient fluctuations into measurable electrical power.

This research was carried out independently, but together it forms the physical basis of the model examined.

The subsequent simulations and mathematical consistency analyses by the Neutrino® Energy Group finally led to a result of sigma 5.9 to 6.0.

What this result actually says

The publication explicitly stresses an important distinction:

The sigma result does not automatically mean that an industrially validated mass product already exists. Rather, the statement concerns the internal consistency of the physical and mathematical framework.

In other words, the statistical analysis shows that the physical architecture of the system fits the known experimental data in a way that practically rules out reasonable doubt.

That is scientifically remarkable. Historically, many technologies were developed long before their theoretical framework was fully understood or mathematically secured. In this case, the order seems to be reversed: first a statistically robust theoretical foundation is created, then technical scaling follows.

According to the publication, a European professor who initially analysed the model sceptically came to the conclusion that its internal logic was consistent – and that the next phase now belonged to the engineers.

The real challenge is only just beginning

Because despite the statistical significance, considerable technical tasks remain.

Industrial production of the required nanostructures requires atomic precision at the interfaces between graphene and silicon layers, stable doping concentrations and geometric tolerances in the nanometre range across large active areas. The Neutrino® Energy Group’s materials development partnerships are currently working on exactly these challenges.

The history of modern energy technologies shows that this step is usually the most difficult. Photovoltaics and fuel cells also took many years to make their way from theoretical concepts to industrially scalable systems.

The point at which science changes its language

The real weight of the current result therefore lies less in a finished product than in its scientific classification.

A sigma value of 5.9 to 6.0 does not mean that every technical challenge has already been solved. It does mean, however, that the underlying model is statistically consistent enough to be taken seriously as a real physical description. Or, put more simply:

In physics, this is the moment when a controversial idea becomes a scientifically relevant framework. That is often exactly where the real story begins.

What does a sigma value mean in science?

In modern physics, the sigma value describes the statistical certainty of a result. The higher the value, the less likely it is that an observed effect is mere chance.

From 5 sigma, physicists officially speak of a scientific “discovery”. This threshold was used, among other things, in confirming the Higgs boson at CERN.

A result of 5.9 to 6.0 sigma is considered statistically extremely robust and leaves practically no room for reasonable chance.

In particle physics there is an informal but internationally established language for this:

Sigma	Probability of chance
1σ	approx. 32 %
2σ	approx. 4.5 % (term: hint)
3σ	approx. 0.27 % (term: evidence)
5σ	approx. 1 in 3.5 million (term: observation)
6σ	approx. 1 in 500 million (term: discovery)