[Mott] [EXTERNAL] Tim recants

[Timothy Gay]

Hi Charlie,

(Actually, I was a postdoc with Vernon.)  I agree that the best way is, as you say, to just identify what the individual sources of uncertainty are.  This was what I remember doing at Yale too.  Table 3 accomplishes this, although I still have a problem calling, e.g., electronic pickup noise "systematic."

Tim

From: Charles Sinclair [mailto:cks26 at cornell.edu]
Sent: Sunday, February 9, 2020 10:28 PM
To: Timothy Gay <tgay at unl.edu>; Joe Grames <grames at jlab.org>; mott at jlab.org
Subject: Re: [Mott] [EXTERNAL] Tim recants

Dear Tim,

I confess to being a little surprised that you only now discovered that people often add systematic and statistical uncertainties in quadruture.  I don't know where you learned in your youth, but I thought you went to grad school at Yale, working with Vernon Hughes - a noted scientist.  I, too, worked with Vernon, and can personally attest (and show co-authored papers) with statistical and systematic uncertainties combined in quadrature.  I share with NIST a lack of enthusiasm for terms like statistical and systematic "errors", preferring the more accurate (to my mind) use of "uncertainties".  As for the issue of combining these very different origins of such uncertainties, one might look to what is now common in much of high energy physics presentations these days.  Here, one simply states the experimentalist's values for the statistical and systematic uncertainties.  With high energy physics' reliance on incredibly sophisticated codes for experimental interpretation these days, this is arguably best.  I note that in the push to exceptionally high precision in some measurements (e.g. NIST type stuff), it is also becoming common to simply state statistical and systematic uncertainties separately and leave it at that.  Perhaps we should do this for Mott?  I would be OK with that, and I suspect that if we ever do another "spin dance" at JLab, the choice may well be to simply state the statistical and systematic uncertainties separately and leave it at that.  Not overly satisfying to the reader, to be sure..............

Best,
Charlie
On 2/9/2020 1:00 PM, Timothy Gay wrote:
Dear Mott team:

I may have spoken hastily on my last point emailed last night.  I just dug in to this more thoroughly, and the NIST Website on Uncertainty

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__physics.nist.gov_cuu_Uncertainty_international1.html&d=DwIFAg&c=CJqEzB1piLOyyvZjb8YUQw&r=hIi4A-HgNXaCb56eFCTIew&m=bY-NJluDZ5bLjANWRjRrJVDuTUY-IkcNTJDvQobjjrc&s=EMA6nOH93rQznmf0p1Rs1fRyVA9bFXwepJ6X2jW2Zac&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__physics.nist.gov_cuu_Uncertainty_international1.html&d=DwMD-g&c=Cu5g146wZdoqVuKpTNsYHeFX_rg6kWhlkLF8Eft-wwo&r=T2FMIfpVYAf9iT7CaqAVog&m=kmU3tAspo_JD0_nk7vh2yhIcvN9ghXHbbV_umzLGm8k&s=9CcE8xgIYwNOEiZ3C8dOffVxEqKIWaPq9abxAEhlA3A&e=>

seems to imply that adding systematic and random uncertainties in quadrature is OK (although they discourage the use of the phrase "systematic error").  So maybe Table 3 is OK as it stands.  (This is not what I learned in my youth!)

Tim

From: Mott [mailto:mott-bounces at jlab.org] On Behalf Of Joe Grames
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 2:20 PM
To: mott at jlab.org<mailto:mott at jlab.org>
Subject: [Mott] Version #8

Hi Mott Team,

Please find attached version #8 of the Mott paper.  The attached copy address ~all of the edits we agreed to during our conference call a month ago, thanks especially to Marcy and Daniel for polishing off the fitting section.   A short while after that meeting, Charlie asked that we take one last hard look at how we've categorized and tallied the uncertainties.  Riad and Daniel largely championed this assessment, and consequently the paper is better for it.   While there is no new surprise twist ending, the uncertainties and studies therein of what we did are clearly and correctly spelled out.

If you would like to make some mild polishing, fix grammar or punctuation that's okay, just edit in review mode and return to me by Monday, Feb 10.  Note, I'm not asking for any further edits, and would not fret over layout, fonts, etc, b/c that is dictated by the publisher.  However, if you find something objectionable then probably a good idea to reply-all and make your case.  Short of anything that slows this bus down, I would like to submit the paper soon after Monday.

Joe




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