Yes, I suppose that the person testifying might have screwed up by showing some sort of log plot. But if that is the explanation, then it just goes to show you how using a log plot -- which might _simplify_ things for a mathematician/engineer -- only further confuses things for the non-mathematician/non-engineer. At 05:31 AM 12/30/2011, you wrote:
Without further context, the Congresspersons comment could be perfectly reasonable. For example, if the indicator number was the ordinate of an exponential curve.
On 12/30/2011 8:12 AM, Henry Baker wrote:
Someone who used to work at NSF once told me a (probably apocryphal) story about testifying to Congress, where he said that some indicator number had to reach 10^20 for a project to be successful, but that the current best indicator that the project had demonstrated to date was 10^10. One of the Congressmen then said -- without a trace of irony -- "then we're halfway there".