this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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Thank you.
Accuracy is about the abilty to hit a specific target, Precision is about being able to repeat it.
Precision is about how fine a scale you can use to describe the position; what you described is repeatability
A clock with a sweep arm is more precise than one without
A digital clock showing fractions of a second is more precise
An atomic clock is even more precise
My nice precise long case chiming clock is precise to about the half minute, but it gains time when the weather becomes colder and loses time when weather becomes warmer, so it has poor repeatability. Its accuracy is good enough as I correct and tune it weekly when I wind it
My wife's cuckoo clock is low precision with only 12 marks on it's face and each of those being blunt and a few minutes wide, it also only sounds half hourly, tweeting the hour or once on the half hour