[time-nuts] Frequency Stability of Trimble Mini-T

Lux, James P james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov
Thu Oct 16 23:20:50 UTC 2008


>
> > If it absolutely, positively can't take any hit, then some
> more work
> > is involved
>
> I would say that the first step is to put a number on
> "absolutely, positively".
>
>

There are lots of systems where you can't put a real number on it, for one reason or another.  Either there's too many unknowns, there are political forces at work (viz "put your management hat on"), or the system is so complex that any computed failure probability will approach 1.0, over any reasonable time scale.



> If you aren't willing to take some risk, you won't get off
> the drawing board.
>

That's certainly true, but a lot of times, you can't (or won't) quantify the risk.


So then, you fall back on fuzzy things like "really good" or "really really good" or "whatever we can do for X dollars and Y years with the best people we can hire"

Jim



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