I frequently run into 'arb. units' when working with blood coagulation rates. However, I have not been able to find an explanation of what these units refer to, how they are calculated, and whether they have conversion equivalencies. Does anyone here know anything about arb. units or have a reference I can use to learn about them?
Thanks.
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Arb. Units
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Our forum has been available for many years. In September 2014 we decided to switch it to read-only mode. Month after month we saw less posts with questions and answers from real people and more spam posts. We were spending more and more resources cleaning the spam until there were less them 1 legitimate message per 100 spam posts. Then we decided it's time to stop.
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Arb. Units
by johniwaniszek » Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:32 pm
- johniwaniszek
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Re: Arb. Units
by Swaraj » Mon Jul 12, 2010 1:15 am
Arbitrary unit means that you cannot calibrate your data or compare to other data. "Arbitrary" means you produced it.
In other words, if you walk in the mountains, and you measure your distance with a stick, then, as a scientist, you'd write "the distance was 5000 au", without any information about the length of your stick.
Or a more serious example: imagine you're looking at a cell through a microscope, and would like to say how big the cell is, but you don't have a scale in milimeters. Then you could put a small object, let's call it a "red ball" next to the cell, and when you say "my cell was two red balls wide", then you're using your arbitrary unit of "red ball".
Since i am working in the field of non-linear optics, i have found the use of arb. units for 'Intensity', 'Conversion Efficiency' in a no. of journals.
In other words, if you walk in the mountains, and you measure your distance with a stick, then, as a scientist, you'd write "the distance was 5000 au", without any information about the length of your stick.
Or a more serious example: imagine you're looking at a cell through a microscope, and would like to say how big the cell is, but you don't have a scale in milimeters. Then you could put a small object, let's call it a "red ball" next to the cell, and when you say "my cell was two red balls wide", then you're using your arbitrary unit of "red ball".
Since i am working in the field of non-linear optics, i have found the use of arb. units for 'Intensity', 'Conversion Efficiency' in a no. of journals.
- Swaraj
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