{"id":3298,"date":"2014-08-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3298"},"modified":"2014-08-01T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T21:00:00","slug":"ballpark-figures-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3298","title":{"rendered":"Ballpark Figures"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/q2.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"q2\" src=\"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/q2.gif\" alt=\"QuestionImage\" width=\"25\" height=\"30\" \/><\/a><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>&nbsp;&nbsp;When my boss asks me for a &#8220;ballpark figure&#8221;, what figure should I give him?<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- from Pedro Rodriguez ofEl Paso, Texas<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: right;\">\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"a2\" src=\"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/a2.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"25\" height=\"30\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;Your boss is probably more scientifically astute than you are.  When he asks you for data in these forms, he&#8217;s utilizing principles of Statistics. Specifically, he&#8217;s referring to Indeterminacy and Heisenberg&#8217;s Uncertainty Principle.  These principles are the foundation on which is based the uncertain future of our modern world.  So, the next time he asks you for a &#8220;guesstimate&#8221;, round off to the nearest significant figure and show him you&#8217;ve got your head screwed on right, statistically speaking.  As for ballparks, tell him you&#8217;ll have to travel to Denver, Cleveland, Baltimore or Chicago&#8217;s Wrigley Field.  Now those are real ballpark figures.  Unless they&#8217;ve raised the price of popcorn over 50 cents, that is.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/q2.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"q2\" src=\"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/q2.gif\" alt=\"QuestionImage\" width=\"25\" height=\"30\" \/><\/a><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>When my boss asks me for a &#8220;ballpark figure&#8221;, what figure should I give him? <span class=\"pgee-read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3298\"><br><br>---\u00a0Here&#39;s the answer from Dr. Science<\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-question-questions-submitted-by-dr-science-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drscience.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}