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Carl Friedrich Gauss Discovered Measurement Error On a Walk to School
How a simple detail in studying a path reveals the deepest statistical truths.
People often think that the most amazing mathematical facts stem from them being inherently complex.
The greatest mathematician of all-time would disagree.
We all know significant figures. We know that our end calculation can’t be more accurate than our least accurate measurement.
We know that makes sense.
But why does it make sense?
Why can’t measurements be “accurate”. Why not create something to make it “exact”.
The answer came out of a boy, sometime in the late 1780s.
A poor kid from Germany, he would walk to school every morning. And walk from school back home.
One day, he started to count his steps to school. He followed a path he thought was exact.
Every time, the step count was off, just a little bit.
Curiosity getting the best of him, he looked at the philosophy of measurement itself.
We all have seen this:
