Re: Significant figures - a Modest Proposal

["JACK L. URETSKY (C)1998; HEP DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB ARGONNE, IL 60439" <JLU@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

Hi all-

Robert A Cohen wrote:

>  Before this year, I used to separate precision and accuracy.  I used
>  precision to describe the "random" error and accuracy to describe the
>  "systematic" error.  I realized this was simplifying things, but I felt it
>  was sufficient for the students.  Unfortunately, I can't succinctly
>  describe the problem I had with that approach.
        This is the common practice with my experimentalist colleagues and
is what you will see if you look at almost any experimental paper in Phys
Rev Lett - or any other current journal.
                                Regards,
                                        Jack


        "I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow.  Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time.  We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
                Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
                Autobiography