How chill is vanilla ice-cream to strawberry – while one can feel
the difference in chillness and measure the degree of cold – there are things
which are better measured by feeling and not by scale. In our school days, it was all about
mathematical tables, and the one who could reel off 13 table was a wizard ! ~
do you know what is ‘mother cow index’ ?
Thosedays
life was all about tables ! ~ in Mathematics,
a multiplication table is used to define a multiplication operation for an
algebraic system.The decimal multiplication table was traditionally taught as
an essential part of elementary arithmetic around the world, as it lays the
foundation for arithmetic operations with base-ten numbers. It was all about
memorising and recalling.
That
way, has life turned simple or more complicated – as you would see modern day
youngsters struggle for simple multiplications and search for a calci
(calculator) or an MS excel sheet. As someone said, modern day Offices might come to a
standstill if Powerpoint and Excel cease to function on a given day !!Excel
is a wonderful tool with unimaginable potential. This software is not only
capable of doing basic data computations, but one can also perform data
analysis using it. Excel, with its wide range of functions, visualization,
arrays empowers amazes its users. In
every argument – there are ‘ifs & buts” – in Excel
it is scientific. If(): one of
the most useful function in excel. It lets you use conditional formulas which
calculate one way when a certain thing is true, and another way when false.
For
advanced learners, Statistics is the branch of mathematics dealing with the
collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. In
applying statistics to, for example, a scientific, industrial, or social
problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a
statistical model process to be studied. Populations can be diverse topics such
as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a
crystal". Statistics deals with all aspects of data including the planning
of data collection in terms of the design of surveysand experiments. In every analysis, scales help us measure the
physical world. To compare quantities, we
rely on quantitative scales – numerical measurements that tell us
something about frequency and quantity. Inches, feet, yards and miles; ounces,
quarts, litres and gallons; seconds, minutes, centuries and lightyears are all
quantitative scales.
There
are qualitative scales too. These are yardsticks that measure observable, but
not necessarily numerical, properties – and we use them all the time. Read this
interesting article in BBC on this – they range from chili pepper heat to mineral hardness
to ocean breezes to something called the Mother Cow Index. Qualitative scales
allow us to label variables with little or no quantitative information. These
unusual units of measurement are often colloquial: guesstimations and
“as-the-crow-flies” rules of thumb that allow for quick assessments and
comparisons.
Qualitative
scales prove their usefulness time and again. Without them, we would struggle
to conceptualise ideas of pain (a doctor might ask a patient to rank his
symptoms) or grade the severity of weather conditions (like the Beaufort Scale
does).Date, when measured from an arbitrary epoch such as BC or AD, helps us
understand time, while direction measured in degrees from true or magnetic
north orients us in physical space.Quantitative scales are much easier to
evaluate, since they are effectively comparisons to a known standard. A
square-kilometre, a teaspoon of sugar or an hour-long lecture are basically
unchanging measurements. Qualitative scales are more subjective. Neither
quantitative nor qualitative scales, however, are ever 100% accurate: they are
each limited by the uncertainty baked into the definitions of units
themselves.Any true measurement, when you get down to it, is arbitrary. Yet the
very human urge to appraise, quantify, and compare persists, and so we
continuously seek new ways to describe our experience of the world.
In
1805, Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, an Irish hydrographer in the Royal
Navy, wanted a way to more accurately measure ocean breezes. Each day aboard
the HMS Woolwich, he recorded in his diary wind force and sea conditions, from
eerie calm to violent gales. Today, a “Beaufort 0” means an ocean as smooth as
glass, while a "Beaufort 12" indicates crashing waves,
hurricane-force wind, whitecaps and greatly reduced visibility.
By
and large, qualitative scales fall into one of two categories: Ordinal
measurements (in which values can be arranged in a meaningful order), or
Interval measurements (in which values can be arranged in a meaningful order,
and the difference between two values matters). For example, an earthquake that
measures 6.0 on the Richter scale is many orders of magnitude greater than a
small trembler of 3.0. So the order of quake size matters, and the interval is
also fixed, meaning that Richter’s scale is an Interval scale. An “extremely satisfied” response on a
customer service ranking is not triple the satisfaction of “somewhat
dissatisfied”; even the difference between 10C and 20C, while quantitative, is
not an intuitive measurement. Some argue that these limitations make
qualitative scales inherently less functional.
Indeed,
while proper measurement ascribes value to the physical world, our perception
of the physical world varies widely. “There are things that we can measure and
things we can’t,” says Andrew Hanson, senior research scientist at the National
Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK. “But even what we canmeasure, we can only
do to a degree.”Hanson works in soft metrology: he studies measurements that
relate to sensory scales like colour and light, which are quantitative but also
subjective. No human can see ultraviolet or infrared light, but even shades on
the visible spectrum appear differently from person to person – a difference
that has real-world implications.
Think
about traffic signals, which must appear red, amber, or green. The way we
perceive the brightness of these coloured lights is non-linear: numerical
changes in input (watts) don’t always translate to the naked eye, or to human
experience.“For a scale to become legitimate, everyone must agree on its units
and intervals,” Hanson explains. Despite the fact that they aren’t always
linear or mathematical, qualitative scales still seem to get the international
greenlight.Take the Scoville scale. Named after its creator, American pharmacist
Wilber Scoville, this scale ranks chili pepper spiciness. But the Scoville
doesn’t actually measure the amount of spice, or capsaicin, in a pepper;
rather, it notes the number of dilutions needed to put out a capsaicin-fuelled
fire.At present, qualitative measurements help us translate ideas that are
almost poetically incalculable: the length of a city block or the Grand Canyon,
the pitch of a teakettle or a lightning strike or a whisper in the dark.
Sounds
complicated but true
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
28th
July 2018
Inspired
by BBC article and largely reproduced from : http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180726-the-measures-that-dont-need-maths
PS: For farmers, the literal size of a field was
much less important than its utility in sustaining cattle. Ireland once used
"a cow's grass" as a unit of measurement — that is, the amount of
land needed for one cow. In America, the "mother cow index"
determined how many pregnant cows an acre of land could support. As opposed to
size, it was a quality measurement.
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