Order of magnitude
(Redirected from Orders of magnitude)
"Order of" is often meant as "it's probably more or less right / at most a small factor off"
- no technical definition
- but conventionally maybe a factor 3-ish at most
"Order of magnitude"
- when used more formally: a factor ten
- when you know it's an estimation, you can read this as 'the decimal ought to be in the right place / probably has the right amount of zeroes on it'
- when used less formally, see 'order of'
Ballpark figure is fuzzier.
- It seems most people use it to mean something inbetween the above two, but not always.
- The original meaning seems to be sports commentators eyeballing the amount of visitors based on filled and empty seats(verify) -- which would easily be better, within a few dozen percent
- but for wider tasks, assume it is fuzzier. It depends on the task