Help, what to do?

[Bluegenes]

Thanks for the reminder about sea level. I did the math and it seems like my meat/candy thermometer is actually only about .5 degrees off then

 

[aart]

I guess I should have said that is was a candy/meat thermometer and has a digital readout that changes to .1 percent.

0.1 is the just the precision of the digital readout display.
Tolerance is about how accurate the thermometer is from the factory.
Human medical thermometers are accurate within 0.3 to 0.5°.
One of the food thermometers I have is accurate within 0.9°.
These numbers are called the tolerance and are listed right on the packaging.
Most other thermometers don't even give an accuracy/tolerance,
that's why they need to be tested/compared to an accurate thermometer.
Not sure I can explain it any better than that.