{"id":6564,"date":"2018-05-01T01:34:37","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T05:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decisionsciencenews.com\/?p=6564"},"modified":"2018-05-01T09:33:26","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T13:33:26","slug":"nineteen-vs-twenty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decisionsciencenews.com\/?p=6564","title":{"rendered":"Nineteen vs twenty"},"content":{"rendered":"

DIGGING THE JUST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE<\/p>\n

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We were getting an egg and cheese on a roll at a deli the other day and started chatting with the cashier about politics and he said that two people were like 19 vs 20.<\/p>\n

We said, “19 vs 20, what’s that mean?”<\/p>\n

He said, “It means basically the same thing. Different but not really different”<\/p>\n

We said, “Where do they say that?”<\/p>\n

He said, “Pakistan”<\/p>\n

As we continued walking to work, we were thinking “this is the best saying ever.”<\/p>\n

In the psychology of sensation and perception, differences in sensation of 5% (e.g., 19 vs 20) are often not detectable. People can\u2019t reliably tell if a rock that weighs 19 pounds is heavier or lighter than a rock that weighs 20 pounds. If the threshold for detecting differences is k, k is called the Weber fraction<\/strong>. Here’s are some estimated Weber fractions (as percentages) for a number of stimulus dimensions:<\/p>\n

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Source<\/a><\/p>\n

As we can see, in many domains, k is greater than 5%, meaning that for many things, the 19 vs 20 difference is not detectable.<\/p>\n

Next, we wanted to see if we could find some web pages on this topic, you know, for blogging.<\/p>\n

Searching on “19 vs 20” in English was not a successful search strategy.<\/p>\n

We thought, well, maybe if it’s said in Pakistan, it’s said in India, too? We asked a couple of Indian colleagues in the lab and bingo, both knew the phrase. In Hindi, it’s “unees bees ka fark”:<\/p>\n

unees<\/strong> means ‘nineteen’<\/p>\n

bees<\/strong> means ‘twenty’<\/p>\n

ka fark<\/strong> means ‘the difference between’<\/p>\n

My colleague Chinmay Singh adds the following<\/p>\n

There is question on Quora about this topic:
\nhttps:\/\/www.quora.com\/What-is-the-English-of-Unees-bees-ka-fark<\/a><\/p>\n

The exact words can be loosely translated as \u201cdifference of nineteen twenty\u201d, as in the difference between two things being compared is the same as that between nineteen and twenty.<\/p>\n

Please note there is subtle difference between this idiom and the English variant \u201csix of one, half a dozen of the other\u201d. The Hindi phrase acknowledges that the difference actually exists, but should be ignored because it is (statistically) insignificant. The English phrase suggests that it\u2019s only a matter of saying it differently as the two choices are identical otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NOTES:<\/p>\n