semantics 101: precision tool must be "accurate and repeatable", if not then it is not precise
Silly, I know, but it interests me. From a movie character played by Peter O’Toole: “If you don’t know the word means, you cannot possibly mean what you’ve said.” Something like that.
This is a forum and forum is for communication, words are therefore important. It is worth a flipping a few more bits to get some clarity here. Since this forum is rather international, I also like to highlight the issue that we are already aware of.
In this case, we both could be right. Meaning of words may change across time, across geographic regions, and across culture. It could change even within the subculture of different disciplines.
Gay: used to mean joy and happy and now it refers to sexual preference
Chemist: In Europe, I go to a Chemist to fill my medical prescription whereas I would go to a Pharmacist in the USA.
CALORIES (all upper case for a reason): Ask a Physicist for a calorie of heat and you get enough heat to warm a *gram* of water by one degree Celsius. Ask a Nutritionist for a Calorie (typically upper case C) of heat and you can warm a whole *kilogram* of water by one degree C.
Metal: Ask a Chemical scientist for a list of “metal” and ask an Astronomist for a list of “metal”, you will get a much longer list from an Astronomist.
I know in this particular case it is not change of meaning “across time”. Searching for “precision” in Google and under “images for precision”, the “Arrow and Target” is still frequently used. In this explanation, the closeness between arrow impact points defines “precision” whereas the closeness of impact points to bulls-eye defines “accuracy.” So I know in this particular instance, out difference in interpretation it is likely not “across time” but “across disciplines” or “across geographic regions.”
So I do have a serious question here – what do EE folks generally define as “precision”? Since this is the EEvBlog, I must therefore defer to the EE meaning of things while here.