Comment by cturner

> I still fail to understand what is arbitrary in scientific notation

I used the word arbitrary, but did not say that scientific notation was arbitrary.

I will try to explain another way. The equation is an assertion. For me, it does not plainly follow from the underlying problem. Once the author has introduced the windowing approach, the equation follows easily for me.

> almost certainly [..] they probably [..] Different explanations are always welcome. But this one is post-fact.

By your own words, it is not clear that it is. It is clear that you doubt that the author of the system was thinking in terms of windows and buckets.