PCR Cycle / Amplification Calculator

Inspectable records

Ledger state

The current ledger marks this instrument verified clean within the source-bound verification corpus.

Area

Biology, Medicine & Pharmacology (educational estimates only — every panel labeled not-medical-advice)

Tranche

tranche-4

Evidence ID

t4-098

Ledger rows

1

No ledger note is attached.

Review findings

The amplification equation is conditionally standard. The Ct equation needs an explicit 100% efficiency and assay-comparability assumption, or an efficiency-adjusted alternative. Retain the existing educational and not-medical-advice labeling, and display the efficiency-unit convention prominently.

Formula and scope findings

• N_final=N0×(1+E)^cycles is correct only for a constant per-cycle efficiency E expressed as a fraction; the allowed range and cycle-count constraints are not specified.
• N0=N_ref×2^(Ct_ref−Ct) is correct only under the ideal 100% efficiency assumption, with comparable assays and Ct values defined on the same scale. For efficiency E other than 1, the base should generally be 1+E rather than 2.
• The output fold amplification is not explicitly defined. It should be stated as (1+E)^cycles, or equivalently N_final/N0 only when N0 is nonzero.

Unit assumptions

• Efficiency E is a dimensionless fraction: 90% must be entered as 0.90, not 90.
• Cycle count is a dimensionless nonnegative integer.
• Ct values are dimensionless cycle numbers.
• N0, N_ref, and the computed quantities use the same copy-number units.
• The Ct formula assumes equal target/reference behavior and 100% amplification efficiency unless an efficiency-adjusted formula is supplied.

Boundary hardening

BREAK_CLAIMED · SELF_FLAGGED

An efficiency of -2 with a fractional cycle count of 0.5 makes the amplification base negative and raises it to a non-integer power, producing no real-valued result. The calculator should reject this input or explicitly return undefined rather than silently returning an invalid quantity.

Errata and corrections

No applied erratum is attached to this unique-name record.

Inspectable example

4 review vectors are recorded. One source-bound sample is shown below.

{
  "inputs": {
    "mode": "amplification",
    "initial_copies": 1000,
    "efficiency": 1,
    "cycles": 10
  },
  "expected_outputs": {
    "final_copy_number": 1024000,
    "fold_amplification": 1024
  },
  "working": "1. Convert efficiency: E=1, so 1+E=2. 2. Compute fold amplification: 2^10=1024. 3. Compute final copies: 1000×1024=1,024,000."
}

Related workflows

No source-defined multi-instrument workflow membership is recorded.

Sources and evidence

These pointers bind the page to evidence. They do not grant authority or collapse verification into deployment.

• VERIFIED_LEDGER.json · VERIFIED_CLEAN
• evidence-tranche4/tranche4-results.json
• BOUNDARY_HAZARD_CATALOG.json