Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site phri.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!vax135!timeinc!phri!roy From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: net.med,net.math Subject: Re: The Perils of Nutrasweet: digits of precision Message-ID: <402@phri.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 10:49:22 EDT Article-I.D.: phri.402 Posted: Wed Aug 14 10:49:22 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 01:19:53 EDT References: <771@burl.UUCP> <394@petrus.UUCP> <182@steinmetz.UUCP> Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) Lines: 17 Xref: linus net.med:1892 net.math:1819 > The usual method of writing numbers (e.g. 10, .007) carries no information > about accuracy. .007 could be accurate to one, two or three decimal places. This is getting rather off the point, but some of you might like this. During one of my interviews for college, I was asked a typical stupid interview question: "What's the area of a table 3 meters wide by 4 meters long?" I poked around with various counter-probes like, "Do you mean the area of just the top surface, or the top and bottom combined?" and then came up with the obvious answer; 12 meters^2. Anyway, it turns out the "correct" answer is 1 * 10^1 meters^2; since the initial data only had 1 digit of accuracy, that's all the final answer can have. -- Roy SmithSystem Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016