A ce compte, toutes les sciences ne seraient que des applications inconscientes du calcul des probabilités ; condamner ce calcul, ce serait condamner la science tout entière." "From this point of view all the sciences would only be unconscious applications of the calculus of probabilities. And if this calculus be condemned, then the whole of the sciences must also be condemned."Henri Poincaré, 1914, La Science et l'hypothèseAbstract Solar gravity modes (or g modes) -oscillations of the solar interior for which buoyancy acts as the restoring force -have the potential to provide unprecedented inference on the structure and dynamics of the solar core, inference that is not possible with the well observed acoustic modes (or p modes). The high amplitude of the g-mode eigenfunctions in the core and the evanesence of the modes in the convection zone make the modes particularly sensitive to the physical and dynamical conditions in the core.Owing to the existence of the convection zone, the g modes have very low amplitudes at photospheric levels, which makes the modes extremely hard to detect. In this paper, we review the current state of play regarding attempts to detect g modes. We review the theory of g modes, including theoretical estimation of the g-mode frequencies, amplitudes and damping rates. Then we go on to discuss the techniques that have been used to try to detect g modes. We review results in the literature, and finish by looking to the future, and the potential advances that can be made -from both data and data-analysis perspectives -to give unambiguous detections of individual g modes. The review ends by concluding that, at the time of writing, there is indeed a consensus amongst the authors that there is currently no undisputed detection of solar g modes.

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The XXIXth International Astronomical Union General Assembly, Noting 1. the absence of an exact definition of the zero point for the absolute and apparent bolometric magnitude scales, which has resulted in the proliferation of different zero points for bolometric magnitudes and bolometric corrections in the literature (ranging at approximately the tenth of a magnitude level; see e.g., Bessell, Castelli, & Plez 1998; Torres 2010), 2. that IAU Commissions 25 and 36 approved identical draft resolutions for defining the zero point for the bolometric magnitude scale (Andersen 1999), but that the resolution never subsequently reached the stage of approval by the IAU General Assembly, and was only sporadically adopted within the astronomical community, 3. that recent total solar irradiance measurements have led to a revised solar luminosity that differs slightly from the value used to set the zero point of the absolute bolometric magnitude scale in the Commission 25 and 36 draft resolutions,