Most precise measuring tool I've used ...
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Measuring favourites (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Measuring favourites (Score:5, Funny)
Shit load is my most commonly used unit of measurement.
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shit-tonnes
Is that the same as a "metric ass-load"?
Re:Measuring favourites (Score:5, Funny)
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Perhaps you can tell me the speed of a raped ape? I've been inquiring about this for quite some time and nobody seems to know. "That car goes like a raped ape!"
Somewhere, on the internet and probably not lost to time, is a post where I even tried to get help finding that information or, at least, the origin of the phrase. It's fairly common in the North Eastern section of the United States. I've not heard it used elsewhere though.
I really don't care about its history or usage. I just want to know, how fast
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Heh...
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22goes+like+a+raped+ape%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a [google.com]
Re: Measuring favourites (Score:3)
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I dunno? He was fast enough to catch the ape in the first place... Or she. I shant be known as a sexist.
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It's implied that a raped ape is faster than a non-raped ape.
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they didn't have a volume measure? (Score:2)
For me pipetter measuring in nanoletters when taking genetics classes.
Two missing options (Score:3)
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That's going back a ways. I'm sure the bubble-heads looked at it a bit differently ;-) Glad you made it back.
less than femtometers (Score:3, Interesting)
I am studying how quarks and gluons contribute to the proton spin at RHIC. It is an accelerator colliding 255 GeV protons on 255 GeV protons.
Individual pounds (Score:2)
Politicians seem to consider counting in millions of pounds (sterling) to be fabulously accurate.
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Pounds? It's about time you Brits joined the rest of Europe and start paying with kilograms sterling.
Blunt instruments! (Score:5, Funny)
The most sensitive device I've used was responsible for tracking individual muons/taus [bnl.gov], so the options seems kinda ham-fisted.
Depends on quantity being measured (Score:3)
...so the options seems kinda ham-fisted.
Depends. Muons detectors, like most particle track detectors, work by measuring the position where a charge particle crosses a detector plane. The position resolution of this is usually given in microns which is about a million times less accurate than a picometre - so hardly "ham fisted" given the options above.
On the other hand most detectors I have worked on can measure invariant mass with a resolution of a few MeV/c^2 - which is a resolution of yoctograms which is a little better than a metric ton.
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Our group was focused on muon tracking, and I never got into any detail on the calorimetry. Which detectors did you work on?
Accuracy and Precision (Score:5, Informative)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but precision and accuracy are not the same thing [wikipedia.org]. They are complementary ideas, to be sure, but they should not be confused: <pedantic probable-correctness="75%">precision indicates how close the measurement is to other measurements of the same phenomenon by the same instrument, while accuracy indicates how close the measurement is to the actual value</pedantic>.
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The number 3.140000000000000000000 is specified in a much higher precision than 3.14159, but it's a less accurate approximation of PI.
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I understood it to mean the highest precision that can be accurately measured with said device (you could say the dial in the scale was halfway between one and two and call it 1.5, but that scale doesn't accurately measure at that precision.
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Actually, if you've got tick-marks at the integer level, then you should be taking measurements at 10-times that precision. ie: deciding between 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 for that "half-way" dial by looking at how far the dial is above the top of the previous tick-mark. The scale doesn't precisely measure beyond that resolution. Didn't any of your labs teach this?
Accuracy is a whole other subject usually involving comparison of a measurement with something "real" (often through other measurements).
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You should be reading at whatever the design precision of the instrument is --- and if you don't have reliable specs from the manufacturer (or are meticulously cautious), you should be checking this yourself. Tossing in extra digits because you think you can (when the instrument is only precise/repeatable to a lower level) is bad practice; you're basically deceiving the next person reading your data that the final digit is somehow worthwhile.
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Re:Accuracy and Precision (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but precision and accuracy are not the same thing.
I was thinking the same thing, but then realized that anyone who could understand the explanation would already know that, and anyone who didn't wouldn't understand it anyway even after I tried to explain.
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Stating that a mile is 5,278 feet 10-11/16" inches is precise but inaccurate.
Stating that a mile is a little less than 5,300 feet is imprecise, but completely accurate.
Of course, YMMV, precision instrument users may have a different understanding.
ÂV (Score:2)
Or is there some other explanation?
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Yeah, /. has issues with Unicode. You'd think a nerd site would have fixed that a long time ago....
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And plenty of multimeters go down to 10/100 microvolts.
God Bless Kenyon College (Score:3)
analytical balance (Score:2)
micrograms when measuring weights in an analytical chemistry lab.
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Yeah, I was looking for that too (for the same reason) - but the only available mass/weight options were huge for some reason.
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Sorry, but that wasn't one of the options in this asinine poll. The purpose of this poll was to distract geeks into arguing over accuracy, while Dice was gauging how many people in marketing are now reading slashdot.
Best answer yet.
Laser interferometry position measuring system (Score:2)
Units of ... (Score:2)
Picoliters, anyone? (Score:2)
Microhertz (Score:2)
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I planned my vaction 3 months in advance. The plane was supposed to leave at 13:20. That's about 6 microHz accuracy.
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Some physical quantities make sense if you do 1/ e.g. 1/resistance or 'conductance' make sense in the electronics world. You know that complicated formula for parallel resistors? Forget it.
Resistors in series? Just add them!
conductors (i.e. resistors, but do one over their value) in parallel? Just add them!
Well, if you have the values of the resistors in ohms, you need to convert to 1 over ohms (Siemens) first. If you need the result in ohms, you have to convert back afterwards.
Anyway, with the physical qua
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Why would it be wrong? As long as the answer is "0" (*) it can be quite right!.
I'll tell you a secret: In informal settings, people sometimes say/write "weight" when they mean "mass". Formally not entirely correct, but depending on context, people (like you for instance) can deduce what was meant.
(*) Or whatever the weight of an object in orbit would be according to your definition of "weight".
The poll is nonsense (Score:2)
Accuracy is not an absolute measure. It is always relative to the measurement range and often relative to the value measured.
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Untrue, but it may seem like it of you do not look to closely.
There are two possibilities to express it: You can express it "natively" as a relative measure, giving absolute range or value measured and absolute error (no, accuracy does not have to be in relation to value measured, relative to measurement range is perfectly permissible as well), or you can express the relation, in unit-free from. Then you still need to state whether the relation is for absolute range or for value measured and the relation st
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In the fields of science, engineering, industry, and statistics, the accuracy[1] of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to that quantity's actual (true) value.
I can see the utility of precision relative to measurement range, but not accuracy. What is the utility for accuracy relative to measurement range?
Not sure (Score:2)
But I once did the Kessel run in under 11.986 parsecs!
I think it's accurate to say (Score:4, Funny)
I think it's accurate to say that upon reading this poll, dozens of college science professors will be looking at their respective screens in their respective locations in the world and collectively shaking their heads from side to side.
Dollars (Score:2)
Let's be honest - measuring money is the most fun, especially if it's yours.
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To be more precise: Measuring money is most fun when it was somebody else's and is now yours.
Attotesla (Score:2)
I used superconducting quantum interference devices [wikipedia.org] in university to measure single flux quantums (5E-18T=5aT).
The electronics was off the shelf scientific equipment, but the cryogenics [wikipedia.org] were of some sophistication (to reach 300mK) and the manufacturing of the SQUIDs required high purity aluminum and a controlled level of oxidation (the hardest part). It took about a day to manufacture a simple sample.
femtoTesla (Score:2)
The magnetometer at NIH has a noise floor around 5-10 fT, depending on the channel. It uses SQuIDs at 4.2 K to measure the magnetic field of the human brain. The LSB of the digitizer is around .2 fT, IIRC. Typical brain fields are on the order of a picoTesla.
PLEASE NOTE!! (Score:2)
Accuracy and Precision are not the same!
Breadcrumb trail (Score:2)
That's the problem with polls like this. I want to assume the attobreadcrumb is the joke option, but I can't help but think someone's going to come along and explain how it's used as a real-life but horribly obscure discrete unit of measurement.
nanograms (Score:2)
Femtograms anyone ?!? (Score:2)
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Never seen so many missing options! (Score:2)
With no "less than"-options, I'm forced to choose the "metric tons", although the correct answer for me is probably .000001, .0000001 or .00000001 metric tons. I can't remember which.
BTW, which is more accurate? An apple or an orange?
The egyptians had it right all along. (Score:2)
I use Royal Cubits. Way simpler than Imperial units.
1 royal cubits = 7 palms = 28 fingers. Simple as that.
The most precise tool I destroyed... (Score:2)
Micrometer (Score:2)
The most precise tool I've used is a Vernier graded micrometer. It measures down to 0.001mm.
Why pound ? (Score:2)
I follow the good old guidelines... (Score:4, Funny)
Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
"Because measurements must be done properly!" (Score:3)
Re:None of the above (Score:5, Funny)
Re:None of the above (Score:4, Funny)
I hear Celsius is a hot topic, but I've personally gone to great lengths learning light years. However I didn't spend too much time on picoseconds.
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Heh. I chose picometers. It's how I weigh my fish. ;)
Re:lol dongs (Score:5, Funny)
my 2nd favorite measurement in the universe (Score:3)
Attoparsecs per microfortnight.
This is, in a cosmic coincidence, about one inch per second, with less than half a percent error.
Almost as good as dongs.
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Re: Accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
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Thank you. No, seriously, thank you. I did not know that. You've given me something interesting to Google and get lost on for a while. That is why I come to Slashdot pretty much. It doesn't seem to happen as much these days but that may be because I've already searched and learned about all the interesting stuff.
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Since he's almost certainly referring to a hardware counter that counts core clock cycles, it is probably quite accurate - as accurate as the oscillator and PLL used to generate the clock, which is probably accurate to within less than 100 parts per million.
Of course, the poll was about precision, not accuracy.
I'll chime in for picoseconds too - but I'm on the hardware side. I've used a variety of oscilloscopes and logic analyzers that run at frequencies well above 1 GHz, and thus would be in the picosecond
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"literally storing the data in transit "
Amazing stuff indeed, when you stop to think about some of what is going on and what it means. Grace Hopper used to carry a piece of copper wire about a foot long - she used it to illustrate nano-second and the distance electricity would travel during that interval. I really like this kind of thing, using everyday items to relate to stuff that's so removed from our experience of the senses.
If you're curious about some of this, here's a link: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki? [c2.com]
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Yes, that is one of my favorite tech anecdotes. Even better, later in her career, she would carry around little packets of black pepper; these were, of course, picoseconds.
Both of these were used to illustrate to her commanding officers (for example) why it took so long for a message to get up to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, then back down to earth, and no matter how hard they tried, she could not do it any faster than the speed of light.
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Right you are. I had just looked at the title bar when I was composing that, which mentions only precision. That explains the (justified) bellyaching about the distinction between accuracy and precision elsewhere in the comments.
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Actually, the poll mixes and matches incorrectly. The poll caption is "Most precise measuring tool I've used ..." but then all of the options describe accuracy, which is of course different. Precision describes the difference between the measurement of the quantity being observed and the next closest possible measurement. Accuracy describes the difference between the measurement and the actual value of the quantity being observed. A deli scale might be precise to a tenth of an ounce (or a milligram, if t
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Meaning in practical terms your sample interval is go
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Atoms are about 1 angstrom wide (as a rough estimate. Hydrogen is about this size, uranium is 2 or three times larger). Or about 0.1 nm. So picometers is really really small. Way, way smaller than an atom.
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Why do you need to specify metric tons, it should be enough to specify tons, a.k.a. 1000kg. Stating metric these days is redundant.
B.t.w. the Swedish mile is 10km while the British/American is 1.6093472186944 kilometers.
Re:Tiny option missing... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And both the long and short tons should be obsolete by now. Even the UK is metric these days.
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Re:Tiny option missing... (Score:4, Informative)
To be consistant with other metric units, the metric 'tonne' should be referred to as a Megagram
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Re:Tiny option missing... (Score:4, Informative)
Why do you need to specify metric tons, it should be enough to specify tons, a.k.a. 1000kg. Stating metric these days is redundant.
My understanding is that American's use the term "metric ton" to refer to what most of the English and French speaking world term a "tonne". (to avoid confusion with the short / long "ton" used in the UK and USA).
Personally, I disagree that stating "metric" these days is redundant, particularly in a discussion thread about precision. In common speech (in the UK) where we pronounce a "ton" and a "tonne" the same, I generally refer to 2,240lbs as a "ton" in speech, and a metric tonne as "one thousand kilos". There is a definite generation gap though, and I've noticed younger people in the workforce are much more predisposed to use metric over imperial measurements.
Re:Tiny option missing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Troll question (Score:4, Informative)
| "it can only be considered a troll poll."
How about the possibility that it's simply a poorly-written question, with the intention of getting lots of geeks other than electronics and programming experts to tell us about their favourite, obscure-yet-recognizable-as-science measuring and test equipment from disciplines we don't hear about so much on here?
Just my two pence.
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but we can't help choosing regardless... dammit they OWN us!!!
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The most accurate thing I've used in my recent memory is a measuring tool that was accurate to 1/16" of a inch in 130 feet. It would still read out to the precision of 1/16" of an inch if I measured something 230 feet, but in many cases it would not be that accurate
Which brings up my other pednatic complaint. Shouldn't the precision/accuracy have something to do with the size of what you are measuring. Observing occulting orbits of un