"on the order of" is not synonymous with "approximately" "on the order of" 10000... | Hacker News

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uiri on Sept 20, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Why I Did Not Go to Jail (2014)

"on the order of" is not synonymous with "approximately"

"on the order of" 1000000 means any number from 1000001 through 9999999

I would expect "approximately" to mean accurate to within the next order of magnitude down. e.g. I would expect "approximately 500000" to mean a range of 400000 to 600000; maybe 350000 to 650000 if you're stretching it.

palunon on Sept 20, 2018 [–]

> "on the order of" 1000000 means any number from 1000001 through 9999999

Not exactly. It can also mean anything from 500,000 to 4,999,999, or 316,228 to 3,162,277...

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude

But yeah, it doesn't mean approximately

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