Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is essentially what it sounds like. I first heard about it in my Electrical Engineering undergraduate's "Signals Analysis" class, where I learned about convolutions. Luckily, the concept of SNR has cross-cutting ties to other areas of life. ## Messy Desk *Situation*: you put something on your desk that needs done by end of day. - If your desk is neat and tidy: the thing remains obvious and front-of-mind - If your desk is already covered in stuff: the thing may fade into the background, and you'll become [[Sign-Blind]] to it. ## Rock dropped in the Lake You drop a rock in the lake. It creates a splash and concentric, ever-expanding ripples. These concentric waves are a signal that you can use to approximate where the rock hit the surface of the water. Energy is never created nor destroyed, and [[Newton's Laws#1. Objects in motion stay in motion, objects at rest stay at rest|Newton's First Law]] suggests those ripples will expand forever. However, the ambient [[Noise]] present in the [[What is a System|system]] will quite quickly overpower the signal - the waves will still be present, but your ability to use them to approximate where the rock hit the water is will be lost in the noise. **** # More ## Source - Undergrad