Rich Ulrich wrote: > > On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 16:23:33 GMT, "R. Martin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > Herman Rubin wrote: > > > > [ snip, original question] > > > > > > BTW, the earliest treatment I know for outliers was for > > > astronomy and physics in the 19th century. There, the > > > effect of improperly discarding suspected outliers was > > > primarily an affordable loss of efficiency, but biases also > > > resulted. The published values of the speed of light kept > > > decreasing until really good observations were made, as the > > > first values were high, and outliers were rejected, partly > > > using previous experiments. > > > > IIRC there have been other cases of values of fundmental constants > > and elementary particle parameters being determined to be well > > outside of the "limits" set by earlier work. > > Yes, but - to some extent - that is a bogus, misleading observation. > > That is, the measurements were *effectively* that precise; > you could successfully use them as if they were that precise, > in all those formulas that make use of the other constants.
Precise yes, accurate no. > However, that whole set of "fundamental constants" is > reviewed, now and again. There are relatively few experiments > that offer evidence about one constant without relying on > assumptions about the other constants -- or so I recall, from > an excellent Scientific American article, probably in 1986, > about the CODATA revisions of that time. > > Here is a recent page - > > http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/index.html?/codata86.html > > -- > Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html > "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization." Thanks, Rich. As a former theoretical physics student I'm familiar with that. Regards, Russell . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
