#lab notebooks

The Laboratory notebook, intended to receive the account of the results of experiments, should always be at hand, as should also pen and ink. All the results worthy of record should be entered at the time the experiments are made, whilst the things themselves are under the eye, and can be re-examined if doubt or difficulty arise. The practice of delaying to note until the end of a train of experiments or to the conclusion of the day, is a bad one, as it then becomes difficult accurately to remember that succession of events. There is a probability also that some important point which may suggest itself during writing, cannot be ascertained by reference to experiment, because of its occurrence to the mind at too late a period.

Experimental errors are categorized as being either random errors or systematic errors. (We are not considering errors caused by mistakes, equipment malfunctions, or poltergeists.)

We are now considering m and b to be variables in the minimization problem rather than parameters in the model equation. This is sneaky.