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Published online 14 November 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.242
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The most accurate measurement ever made
Physicists get down to the theoretical limit of precision.
A measurement has been made on a quantum system at the greatest precision theoretically possible, according to a paper published today in Nature1.
The team, led by Geoff Pryde of Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, has managed to measure the interference between two light waves as they beat slightly out of step, with a precision that is limited only by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the most fundamental and unavoidable source of ‘fuzziness’ in the quantum world.
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It seems that physicists consider accuracy and precision the same, interchangeable concepts. We teach students that precision is a measure of reproducibility, it can be excellent but if the method is burdened with bias it will produce result far from true value. Accuracy deals with average bias from true value. Of course, we strive for perfect accuracy (zero bias) and perfect precision at the same time.