fudge factor
noun
: an arbitrary mathematical term inserted into a calculation in order to arrive at an expected solution or to allow for errors especially of underestimation
broadly : any arbitrary unspecified factor
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web Everything else — the excess energy from the byzantine quantum effects and nonlocal interactions — went into the second half: a fudge factor known as the exchange and correlation functional. 
Quanta Magazine, 7 Feb. 2022 Over the following decades, scientists built on Kohn and Sham’s work with increasingly clever ways of estimating the fudge factor, and density functionals became the de facto way to understand electrons. Quanta Magazine, 7 Feb. 2022 The US Environmental Protection Agency's test averages almost twice that, but then gets subjected to a fudge factor that heavily penalizes some while flattering others. Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 31 Aug. 2020 This has led to a fudge factor in the literature — guesstimates that 10% of the micrometeoroidal matter sticks to the ice and pollutes it. Quanta Magazine, 26 Nov. 2019 This part of her plan should be treated as a fudge factor and statement of political positioning, nothing more. Nr Editors, National Review, 7 Nov. 2019 Add in a fudge factor of another 20 miles, and searchers ended up with a search box that stretched 40 nautical miles on either side of the final ping arc. Jeff Wise, Popular Mechanics, 22 July 2016 The hope is to string together results from different size scales in a way that minimizes the need for fudge factors, researchers say. Adrian Cho, Science | AAAS, 30 May 2018 The work on counting universes arose from an effort to understand a fudge factor known as the cosmological constant, an antigravitational force associated with empty space that Einstein invented in 1917 to explain why the universe was stable. Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2018 See More
Quanta Magazine, 7 Feb. 2022 Over the following decades, scientists built on Kohn and Sham’s work with increasingly clever ways of estimating the fudge factor, and density functionals became the de facto way to understand electrons. Quanta Magazine, 7 Feb. 2022 The US Environmental Protection Agency's test averages almost twice that, but then gets subjected to a fudge factor that heavily penalizes some while flattering others. Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 31 Aug. 2020 This has led to a fudge factor in the literature — guesstimates that 10% of the micrometeoroidal matter sticks to the ice and pollutes it. Quanta Magazine, 26 Nov. 2019 This part of her plan should be treated as a fudge factor and statement of political positioning, nothing more. Nr Editors, National Review, 7 Nov. 2019 Add in a fudge factor of another 20 miles, and searchers ended up with a search box that stretched 40 nautical miles on either side of the final ping arc. Jeff Wise, Popular Mechanics, 22 July 2016 The hope is to string together results from different size scales in a way that minimizes the need for fudge factors, researchers say. Adrian Cho, Science | AAAS, 30 May 2018 The work on counting universes arose from an effort to understand a fudge factor known as the cosmological constant, an antigravitational force associated with empty space that Einstein invented in 1917 to explain why the universe was stable. Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2018 See More Word History
First Known Use
1962, in the meaning defined above