Comments on: On Multiplying Ordinal, err INTERVAL Numbers http://spiresecurity.com/?p=157 Risk and Cybersecurity Analysis Wed, 21 Aug 2013 23:28:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Pete http://spiresecurity.com/?p=157&cpage=1#comment-192 Pete Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:40:40 +0000 http://spiresecurity.com/blog/?p=157#comment-192 @Alex – 2 is twice as big as 1 and half as big as 4.

@Chris – the units are points.

]]> By: Chris http://spiresecurity.com/?p=157&cpage=1#comment-191 Chris Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:07:36 +0000 http://spiresecurity.com/blog/?p=157#comment-191 What are the units for any of these purportedly ratio variables?

]]> By: Alex http://spiresecurity.com/?p=157&cpage=1#comment-190 Alex Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:28:29 +0000 http://spiresecurity.com/blog/?p=157#comment-190 If it is a “true ratio” than what does “1″ stand for (and especially when you compare it to “2″)?

]]> By: Pete http://spiresecurity.com/?p=157&cpage=1#comment-189 Pete Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:24:36 +0000 http://spiresecurity.com/blog/?p=157#comment-189 @Alex -

I don’t think your example is a legitimate comparison to the situation I am describing, and it makes me think even more that these scales are ratio and not interval.

The more I think about it, a 1 to 5 scale (or whatever) has a true zero and is probably ratio. And it definitely matters if you can perform operations on the numbers.

]]> By: Alex http://spiresecurity.com/?p=157&cpage=1#comment-188 Alex Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:30:39 +0000 http://spiresecurity.com/blog/?p=157#comment-188 Does it matter? Unless it’s a ratio scale, it’s all meaningless.

Using Interval numbers in R=TxVxA is like trying to multiply June 7th by June 3rd and saying the result is June 21st.

I think you’d have a tough time arguing that they are usually ratio. I’ve seen some try to say they are representative of some unknown ratio scale – but then they just become ordinal qualifiers for that ratio scale (which makes them useless again).

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