random error

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an error that has a random distribution and can be attributed to chance.

QUIZZES

We understand! Words are tricky that way. Take this quiz on the Words of the Day from February, 2021, to show that you’re far from frumious!

Question 1 of 10

Which Word of the Day means “happening within or being the created world of a story”?

First recorded in 1935–40

When used with various methods of plotting and dissecting the measurements, data points representing Cepheids and other special stars fall neatly along straight lines, with very little of the “scatter” that would indicate random error.
Astronomers Get Their Wish, and a Cosmic Crisis Gets Worse|Natalie Wolchover|December 17, 2020|Quanta Magazine
How The Post describes differences in the averagePoll averages can reduce random error that occurs in every survey, but they are far from precise instruments.
How The Washington Post’s polling average works|Scott Clement, Emily Guskin|October 16, 2020|Washington Post
Everyone out there who says, “Charlie Hebdo provoked,” is making the same fundamental error.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Our Duty Is to Keep Charlie Hebdo Alive|Ayaan Hirsi Ali|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Reprinted by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company.
Thank Congress, Not LBJ for Great Society|Julian Zelizer, Scott Porch|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST

There were also crashes not due to either mechanical or human error but to a lack of warning of dangerous conditions.
Flight 8501 Poses Question: Are Modern Jets Too Automated to Fly?|Clive Irving|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST
But as everyone knows, he went on to say—not once but many times—that that was the greatest error of his career by far.
Steve Scalise and the Right’s Ridiculous Racial Blame Game|Michael Tomasky|January 2, 2015|DAILY BEAST
The misidentification has since been corrected, and The Daily Beast regrets the error.
Choking Back Tears, Thousands of Cops Honor Fallen Officer Ramos|Michael Daly|December 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It is a very common error to consider these deposits as evidence of excessive excretion.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
My mother now tells me that she knew of this mistake, an error of the New York paper in copying the item from a Southern journal.
The Boarded-Up House|Augusta Huiell Seaman
It was a fatal error, for though the Spanish people might despise their King, they were intensely proud of their nationality.
Napoleon's Marshals|R. P. Dunn-Pattison
It was an error not to separate borrowing entirely from monetary issues.
Readings in Money and Banking|Chester Arthur Phillips
Firing a random volley, those that lived turned and fled, pursued by the scouts.
The Courier of the Ozarks|Byron A. Dunn