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Old 11th May 2003, 12:38
  #15 (permalink)  
bblank
 
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ask a simple question ...

OK, a third formula now. If anybody is still keeping score, then Fat Dog's
formula remains exact (modulo all the simplifying assumptions Tim Zukas
enumerates), keendog's formula is a good approximation, and
Tim Zukas's approximation very nearly splits the difference between
the two dogs' answers.

Since 6080/6886 is about 0.883 the conversion to nm is X^2/6886.

Now if one expands the answers of the two dogs in a Maclaurin series
(which in this case is just Newton's Binomial Formula)
one finds the simple quadratic approximation X^2/6886 to be
nearly midway between the two earlier answers. The
plot
shows that all three answers are very nearly the same for X < 200 nm.

(Just thought I'd make all this clear.)
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