"Paul Hyett" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 at 12:08:18, Graham Easterling
wrote in uk.sci.weather :

It does minimise the error. I read my barometer to the nearest mb. If
I had 1,000 barometers calibrated to the same standard, and managed to
read them all at the same time, and took the mean, it would be
reasonable to quote it to a higher level of precision.


But that is not a real world situation. In reality the standard errors would
be different, hopefully they would come from the same population but they
will still be different for a variety of reasons.

I was always told that you mustn't quote an average to a greater precision
than the accuracy of the instrument.

That's true Paul.
Keith Grant, who posted earlier in the thread is the expert and he is
absolutely correct.

Will
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