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In Reply to: "precise" You're using the wrong word. posted by Tre' on April 22, 2016 at 21:00:43:
I would take issue with precise and accurate being synonyms because in analytical science they are most definitely not the same thing.
A common analogy is throwing darts at a dart board. If the bullseye is the absolute correct value for an analytical measurement then the closer a dart is to that center then the more accurate is that dart. Precision is the measure of variance if many darts are thrown at the dart board. So accuracy would be the absolute closeness to a hypothetical true value and precision would be the overall variance of a collection of values.
What this means is that a collection of values can be precise but not accurate if they are far away from the true value and a set of values can be accurate but imprecise if the mean is close to the true value but the variance is high. OR a set of values can be both accurate and precise if they are both close to the true value and are clustered close together.
In the example above about precise directions, they can be very expicit, very detailed...and totally inaccurate! So, whatever dictionary you pulled this definition from is IMO inaccurate in its definition of the word precise.
A precise soundstage would mean things are tightly grouped in their own space and easy to discern as separate entities but this might not be true to the original arrangement of the musicians and therefore inaccurate. In this case, we would probably prefer a fictitious and precise soundstage over whatever was done in the studio originally as it might not even have been done all at the same time!
Sorry to nit, but as a scientist it is an important distinction to make and the two words are constantly being confused.
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Follow Ups
- RE: "precise" You're using the wrong word. - morricab 14:39:20 04/23/16 (1)
- Your "nit" is dead on. nt - Analog Scott 22:53:53 04/23/16 (0)
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