7 ms·
“Order of magnitude” is a colloquial, imprecise term that doesn’t actually mean “exactly ten” (otherwise, people would just say “ten”).
by umanwizard 5y ago
“Order of magnitude” is a colloquial, imprecise term that doesn’t actually mean “exactly ten” (otherwise, people would just say “ten”).
- okamiueru 5y agoIn an engineering context, I would interpret it to be "roughly ten times", because that is what it means. And the same argument,that if they meant something else, would just say "three", or what have you. In this case h-d is 8x, d-w is 5x, w-m is 4x and m-y is 12x. This is after all just unimportant pedantic, but if clear and simple communication is the goal, it probably makes more sense to describe it as the next calendar unit up.
- janto 5y agoFor interest sake, it looks like non-decimal reference values have been used https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude
- flavius29663 5y agoThat is beyond the point, since the OP changed the magnitude with every size. If it was 8x at each iteration, we would've had less pedantic comments here
- janto 5y agoHaving quotation marks around "order of magnitude" sure didn't stop pedantic comments. I'm not sure what can.
- evanb 5y ago> I would interpret it to be "roughly ten times", because that is what it means Only if you work base-10!