Guesstimate is an informal English portmanteau of guess and estimate, first used by American statisticians in 1934[1] or 1935.[2] It is defined as an estimate made without using adequate or complete information,[3][4] or, more strongly, as an estimate arrived at by guesswork or conjecture.[2][5][6] Like the words estimate and guess, guesstimate may be used as a verb or a noun (with the same change in pronunciation as estimate). A guesstimate may be a first rough approximation pending a more accurate estimate, or it may be an educated guess at something for which no better information will become available.
The word may be used in a pejorative sense if information for a better estimate is available but ignored.[7][8]
Guesstimation techniques are used:
- in physics, where the use of guesstimation techniques to solve Fermi problems is taught as a useful skill to science students;[9]
- in cosmology, where the Drake equation is a well-known guesstimation method;[10]
- in economics, where economic forecasts and statistics are often based on guesstimates;[11] and
- in software engineering, where new development of features and release timelines are based on effort guesstimates of tasks.
Lawrence Weinstein and John Adam's 2009 book Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin, based on the course "Physics on the Back of an Envelope" at Old Dominion University, promotes guesstimation techniques as a useful life skill. It includes many worked examples of guesstimation, including estimating the total number of miles that Americans drive in a year (about 2 trillion)[12] and the amount of high-level nuclear waste that a 1 GW nuclear power plant produces in a year (about 60 tons).[13]
See also
editReferences
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- ↑ Harper, Douglas. "guess". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- 1 2 "the definition of guesstimate". Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ "guesstimate". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. OCLC 1032680871. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ "guesstimate". MSN Encarta. Archived from the original on 12 December 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ "guesstimate". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). The Houghton Mifflin Company/Bartleby.com. Archived from the original on 16 March 2008.
- ↑ "guesstimate". Compact Oxford English dictionary of current English. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 2008. p. 448. ISBN 978-0-19-953296-4.
- ↑ Rumsey, Deborah (2016). Statistics for Dummies (2 ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. back cover. ISBN 978-1-119-29352-1. OCLC 947925410.
Guesstimate with confidence using confidence intervals
- ↑ "NTTI Lesson: Guesstimate; Grades 4-6". www.thirteen.org. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ Mann, Tony (5 June 2008). "Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin". Times Higher Education. Archived from the original on 7 June 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ "The Drake Equation". WeAreNotAlone.net. Archived from the original on 26 September 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ Perryman, M. Ray (10 October 2003). "Economic outlooks often rely on guesstimation". San Antonio Business Journal. Archived from the original on 12 May 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
- ↑ Weinstein & Adam 2008, Problem 5.1
- ↑ Weinstein & Adam 2008, Problem 10.5
Sources
edit- Weinstein, Lawrence; Adam, John A. (2008). Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12949-5.
External links
edit- "The Fermi Project: Collection of guesstimates for practice". fermiproblems. Archived from the original on 17 August 2020.