Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny d
Billy, precision is overrated. You can repeat the same thing over and over again and still be wrong. Maybe your equipment isn't calibrated correctly. Your measurements can still be precise and at the same time be nowhere near accurate.
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Which is why I have to be both precise, and accurate, or I lose my day job.
Although not as precise, and accurate, as some may think. One of my biggest surprises moving from academia to the real world was that in the real world of environmental (production, not research) analytical chemistry, I am considered to have replicated an analysis of a sample if I come within twenty percent, plus, or minus (a total range of forty percent), of the replicate (duplicate) sample. That's like saying that eighty dollars is the same as one hundred and twenty dollars. I tried that out at my local supermarket the other day. As you would expect, that didn't go over very well there.
Think about that the next time you take a sip of tapwater. Plus, or minus, twenty percent.