estimions

Estimions are a hypothetical unit used to quantify the precision of an estimate in theories of measurement, statistics, and decision making. They are not recognized as a real physical unit and do not appear in standard metrology. The idea is used primarily in thought experiments, educational contexts, or speculative literature to discuss limits of knowledge and the granularity of estimation.

In a typical framework, an estimion is defined as the smallest resolvable increment in an estimated quantity within a given model or measurement procedure. The size of an estimion is model-dependent and may vary with the information content, sample size, or prior assumptions. An estimation expressed as a value with an estimion conveys that the true value is known to within ±e on the scale of the model, modulo the usual probabilistic interpretation.

Estimions relate to other concepts such as measurement error, standard deviation, and confidence intervals. Unlike a standard deviation, which is a property of a sampling process, an estimion is a unit of resolution tied to a particular estimation method. In Bayesian contexts, the estimion size could reflect the width of the posterior distribution; in frequentist contexts, it could reflect the half-width of a tolerated error bound.

Applications of the concept appear mainly in pedagogy, fictional worldbuilding, and theoretical discussions of information limits. Estimions are used to illustrate how data quality constrains what can be known and to compare estimation procedures by their resulting estimion sizes. See also estimation, uncertainty, and measurement theory.