terminology question
Message posted by Jana on December 6, 2000 at 12:00 AM (ET)

I'm not a native English speaker - that's probably why I'm going to ask a question everybody else can probably answer very easily: while studying english literature I frequently come across a term like: "The measurements were within a factor of 2 of the values predicted by the theoretical formula"; or "lowering the value of X by 10 lowers Y by factors 3-5". Would anybody be so kind and explain how I should understand such statements? It's probably a stupid question but really important for me.