Backsights (and lava caves)

John Halleck John.Halleck@utah.edu
Tue, 21 Jan 2003 08:43:02 -0700 (MST)


On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Sergey Sorokin wrote:

> [...]
> That is if
> you have error of 1 degree at each measurement than you may have error
> of 10 degrees after 10 stations.

  Huh?

  If the standard deviation of a measurement is (for example) one
  degree, you'd expect the standard deviation after ten of them to be
  about sqrt(10*1) = 3.16.   At least that's what I was taught when I
  took statistics.

> [...]

  Although your point of the errors accumulating is well made.