B History of Error Bars in Physics

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on the historical development of error bars in scientific research, sparked by Thomas Young's 1803 paper, which notably lacked them. The inquiry highlights the modern expectation that scientific papers include error bars to represent measurement uncertainties. It suggests that the standardization of error bars likely emerged around the 1950s, although the specifics of how this practice became widespread remain unclear. Participants speculate whether it was a collective decision among scientists or the influence of a few key individuals. The conversation emphasizes the importance of error bars in contemporary scientific communication.
eudo
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I was reading an 1803 paper by Thomas Young (of double slit fame), "Experiments and Calculations relative to physical Optics". In it, he lists various dimensions of fringes of light and things.

All without any error bars.

It got me thinking, what's the history of error bars in scientific work? I mean nowadays, no one would submit a paper without any error bars. How did this become the standard?
 
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_bar

That page is more a brief description of what an error bar is. I'm looking more for the history of its development. When did it become common to put error bars around things? Did a bunch of scientists come to some conference one day and discuss how they needed to describe the uncertainties in their measurements? Or did one guy start doing it, and others thought that was a great idea and followed suit? That sort of thing...

Actually, I found another thread that I missed before, talking about something similar:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/history-of-error-analysis.791647/
[PLAIN]https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/history-of-error-analysis.791647/[/PLAIN]
 
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eudo said:
It got me thinking, what's the history of error bars in scientific work? I mean nowadays, no one would submit a paper without any error bars. How did this become the standard?
Towards the end of this reference it says that error bars became considered essential sometime in the 1950s, but it doesn’t give further details

http://www.edu-observatory.org/physics-faq/Relativity/SR/experiments.html
 

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