OK, it was bogus of me to quote the result to 3 significant figures. But I still reckon +/- 44% counts as "very small second-order terms" when the object is to refute a calculation that suggests the outcome happens one time in 126,000,000...

I think he had said 1 in 27,000; but you've got a point. While I'd strongly disagree with the phrasing "very small second-order terms", it's definitely the case that those 44% don't matter much for refuting the particular calculation in question. Then again, having something happen 15% of the time is very much different than having it happen 25% of the time (gross rounding there). :)


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Daniel M. Zimmerman, Caltech Computer Science
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