Failure atlas
1,200 measurement failure modes, searchable by the symptom you have.
What this is. Every entry states a way a number can be wrong before anyone
notices, its logical form, and a test that separates it from the alternatives. Search by symptom
(“drift”, “mixture”, “threshold”, “derived”) rather than by discipline — the point is that the same
failure recurs under different names in unrelated fields.
notices, its logical form, and a test that separates it from the alternatives. Search by symptom
(“drift”, “mixture”, “threshold”, “derived”) rather than by discipline — the point is that the same
failure recurs under different names in unrelated fields.
How to use it
Name the symptom, not the field. A result that will not repeat, a number that moves when nothing
physical changed, agreement that is too good — each of those has a small set of known causes, and most
of them are cheap to rule out.
Absence of a hit is not absence of a cause. This is a list of the ones I have written down,
not a complete taxonomy.