Re: OT: definition of "significant figures"

[Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk>]

tmoran@acm.org writes:

> Given a set of measurements x(i), I'd like to print their average to
> the "correct" number of significant figures.  eg
>   1.11, 1.12, 1.08 => "1.1",   1.11, 1.25, 1.35 => "1"
> I've got some adhocery that more or less does it, but is there a
> moderately standard, formal, definition?

The base 10 logarithm of the standard-deviation of your measurements.

Jacob (who as a physicist admits that he may make sign and
       factor-of-two errors)
-- 
�You have to blow things up to get anything useful.�
                                  -- Archchancellor Ridcully