I'm curious about what symbol everyone here uses for uncertainty in
measurement. One can get a long way without using any particular
symbol, but in some situations (e.g., teaching about uncertainty
propagation) you need an algebraic symbol to represent the uncertainty,
separate from the measured value.
* Many at my college use capital-delta-x (for variable x). I prefer to
avoid that because the same symbol is used for "change in x".
* Some like to use sigma-sub-x. But the way I read things, that really
should be reserved specifically for standard deviation. Some
uncertainties aren't standard deviations.
* NIST recommends u(x), but I don't particularly like that because it
looks like a functional relationship.
Cheers,
-- James
--
Dr. James McLean phone: (585) 245-5897
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy FAX: (585) 245-5116
SUNY Geneseo email: mclean@geneseo.edu
1 College Circle web: http://www.geneseo.edu/~mclean
Geneseo, NY 14454-1401