Talk:2295: Garbage Math

Inclusion in Series

This is not a Covid19 comic. One could think that this is a comment on the difficulties of modeling the corona virus outbreak, but since discussions of exponential functions are only a small part in the comic I believe it is just a general comment on floating point arithmetic mixed in with statistical considerations. --108.162.229.242 17:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I disagree that this is not a COVID-19 comic. I also believe the one about visualizing large numbers was COVID-19 related. On the other hand, I like the idea that Randall might produce exactly 19 comics related to SARS CoViD 2019, so I'm prepared to concede the point for the sake of arbitrary numerological appeal.

ProphetZarquon (talk) 18:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I think Exa-Exabyte was a real stretch (the virus doesn't even have DNA), but there is a tenuous link so whatever. The idea that this comic is related, on the other hand, stretches past the breaking point. There's hardly anything that can't be linked to global events if we try hard enough, but that doesn't mean there's an actual link. Sometimes a comic about garbage math is just a comic about garbage math. 172.69.71.58 19:33, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I think this one's much more likely to be a coronavirus comic than Exa-Exabyte was. There's an awful lot of COVID data, much of it either very imprecise or outright garbage; and the comic directly before this one (2294) involved bad modeling of said COVID data, so clearly COVID data (and its limitations) is something Randall's currently thinking of and drawing comics about. Pelosujamo (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Exa-Exabyte was centered around biology, which gives reason to believe it was covid19 related. This one seems much more uncertain. Any conclusion that it is related is based on garbage. Jokes aside, It seems like much more of a stretch to me. Randall thinking in those terms is a reasonable argument, but personally I am going to assume this is the chain breaker unless a direct reference is made in the next couple comics since ending at 19 is would be appropriate. 172.69.70.209

While this comic has no direct reference to Covid-19 it does appear that the math might be related. At this point we can't know if the series has ended. As such I've edited the paragraph in the explanation to identify the known ambiguities. And now I realize I've made an explanatory paragraph about "knowledge error bars" in the explanation of a comic about numerical error bars.Iggynelix (talk) 14:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

No. The reason it appears the math might be related is because the math relates to everything, everywhere. That's not enough of a connection. During this pandemic, there will be a lot of comics related to the coronavirus, many of them in a row, but that doesn't mean that every comic that could be tangentially related if you squint just right should qualify as a COVID-19 comic (I still think Exa-Exabyte doesn't). There needs to be a real link, because just about anything could be twisted into a relation if you try hard enough. As a test, I hit Special:Random and got 346: Diet Coke+Mentos. Wouldn't you know, that's a coronavirus comic! The father, you see, actually had COVID-19 and died, but Diet Coke and Mentos has brought him back! No. The line should be drawn here. The streak has ended. 172.69.68.197 17:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Math and Error bars

Well this is surprising came here thinking I understood it just to see what the discussion looked like. Ended up learning something new. I was able to understand intuitively the comic. But this is my first exposure to actually doing math on the error bars. I think I was supposed to do that in college but I don't remember anyone ever explaining how it should work. --162.158.63.208 18:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

In recent days, there have been a number of math "quizzes" in this same type of format, albeit generally with only addition and maybe multiplication, appearing on Facebook. Should the explanation include a reference to this as a possible contributing reason for Randall's comic? One could also argue that those quizzes have been appearing on Facebook as a way to spend/waste time during the coronavirus pandemic lock-down, making he comic at least tangentially related to Covid19 LIES.

Unsigned vandalism? /\ change history @user Please feel free to move your discussion to an appropriate forum and remove both the edit and this comment at such time. Iggynelix (talk)

What's the difference between relative error and absolute error? I don't understand these terms. Maybe add?

Absolute error is the amount of uncertainty in a value measured as a given number. e.g. 5.7 ± 1.2 means that actual value lies somewhere between 5.7 - 1.2 and 5.7 + 1.2 = 4.5 to 6.9. If you change the 5.7 to another value, you still get the same absolute difference of maximum and minimum values. Relative error depends on the value you are comparing to. e.g. 5.7 ± 10% would be between 5.7 - 0.57 and 5.7 + 0.57 = 5.13 to 6.27. The absolute difference of maximum and minimum would change if the main number changes. e.g. 11.3 ± 10% would be between 10.17 and 12.43, which has a greater absolute difference of maximum and minimum than the previous example. Nutster (talk) 01:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Are all of these equations consistent with garbage = infinity?

Unfortunately, as written, these equations would not make sense by defining Garbage as an infinity. Infinity is not a number you can count to or measure in between integers. Infinity is the idea of unending-ness. Trying to use infinity as if it a finite number yields all sorts of invalid results. In this case Garbage is defined as an arbitrary finite number with a large amount of uncertainty in its value. Nutster (talk) 01:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

That's a pretty good definition of 'garbage' in any case, plus or minus 10%. ( See also valuable garbage) Iggynelix (talk) 14:19, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Would the summation divided by n just give you the arithmatic mean of the data set? Nutster (talk) 01:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Pretty much, but the point is probably more that (without consistent bias across the set, just 'random' errors for each item) it suppresses the degree of garbagicity as outliers are increasingly nullified by the greater number of more competently accurate values and (if it's a symmetric error) opposing outliers. 162.158.34.222 09:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)