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It should be sufficiently sensitive to detect the object of the search and it should not
be so sensitive that it continually gives false alarms of discovery. It is important to
check regularly that the detection equipment is working as the search proceeds
(iii) choose the optimum search path:
Attempt, if possible, to show that the object does lie in the search area before you
begin to search-many faultless pieces of equipment have been stripped only to
have the fault discovered later elsewhere. In many cases it is best to use a
convergent procedure in which a test for the existence of the object in one half of
region is first applied, and having located the faulty half, to take finer and finer
divisions until the object is located.
Alternatively, if there is a region in which the object most probably lies, start in this
region of greatest probability. The optimum path would go through the most likely
places first and you should concentrate your search involves moving among many
variables, as for instance in tuning a piece of electronic equipment , you should
devise a one-dimensional path trough the many dimensions of the search area. The
starting point should be marked and the path which is followed should be recorder
because it is often necessary to retrace a path to regain a peak that has been
passed. Search systematically. Sometimes it is possible to devise a way of obtaining
the approximate direction and position of thje object at each search point; when this
can be done, graphical or mathematical methods may sometimes help to home on
to the object.
(iv) allow that you may have missed the object:
If a new technique or a better piece of detection equipment becomes available,
check back through rejected regions in case the object may have been missed.
Replication and the spacing of test points
It is seldom in experimental work that a single observation is regarded as
conclusive. Confidence comes with repeatability.
The word replication means the complete repetition of a measurement and it
involves not just repeated glances at a dial to record a series of similar values but a
repetition of all the steps that led up to that measurement so that when the
repeated measurement is made, it tests all the steps previously made in the
experiment. There are two views that may be taken about replication and these
depend upon whether the replication is made with conditions as near as possible
unaltered or whether some quantity is changed before the replicated measurement
is made.
The reason for replicating with conditions unchanged are either to test for or to
reduce the random error in a measurement. The precision (the inverse of the
from which k and a may be obtained. Where available information shows that log
plots are to be employed, test points should be chosen closer together at the lower
and of the range so that, when plotted, the points become evenly spaced along the
curve.