Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Not always. It's not really a precise term. Here is the first definition of Order of Magnitude that Google picks up.
"a class in a system of classification determined by size, each class being a number of times (usually ten) greater or smaller than the one before."
In common usage, many people are simply referring to a rather large difference, as I was in this case.
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I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree. The term "order of magnitude" has a precise meaning - certainly in the worlds of science and mathematics. It means "a factor of 10" and nothing else. If I write "3 orders of magnitude", I mean "a factor of 1000". To suggest that a difference of less than double can be described as "orders of magnitude" different is misleading at best.