Standard deviation

Hi all,

I was wondering about something.....When you fit a peak and igor is returning all the parameters (location, width,height), it also gives the standard deviation. I am trying to understand what is the significance of this value.....i mean is it somehow related to how good the fit is? The reason i am asking is because my general feeling is that SD makes more sense if you have replicate measurements of the location of a peak for example rather than just a measurement. Any ideas?
That standard deviation is an estimate of the probability distribution describing the range of possible values for a given coefficient. It is estimated from the partial derivatives of the chi-square surface with respect to each coefficient.

John Weeks
WaveMetrics, Inc.
support@wavemetrics.com