On 2022-12-19 15:14:14 +0000, MRAB wrote: > On 2022-12-19 14:10, Peter J. Holzer wrote: > > He also interpreted the notation "6.67430(15)E-11" wrong. The > > digits in parentheses represent the uncertainty in the same number of > > last digits. So "6.67430(15)E-11" means "something between 6.67430E-11 - > > 0.00015E-11 and 6.67430E-11 + 0.00015E-11". [...] > To be fair, I don't think I've never seen that notation either!
I've probably seen it first on Wikipedia, quite a few years ago. Since then I've also encountered in in physical and astronomical papers (I'm neither a physicist nor an astronomomer but I occasionally read the original papers if what I read in the "mainstream media"[1] or hear on youtube seems suspect). > I've only ever seen the form 6.67430E-11 ± 0.00015E-11, which is much > clearer. Yeah, it's definitely not the pinnacle of inuitiveness. I freely admit that I looked it up before posting just to make sure that I wasn't confused about its meaning. Another problem (but it shares that with the ± notation) is that it's not clear what that number actually represents. Is it one sigma or two? Or something else? Is the distribution even symmetric? hp [1] I'm not quite happy with that term. -- _ | Peter J. Holzer | Story must make more sense than reality. |_|_) | | | | | h...@hjp.at | -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing __/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | challenge!"
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