Errors and uncertainties

Question 1

What is the uncertainty of a measurement?

Answer 1

± the smallest scale division

Question 2

What do you do to uncertainties when adding or subtracting?

Answer 2

You add the errors together

Question 3

What do you do to uncertainties when multiplying or dividing?

Answer 3

You add the percentage errors together

Question 4

What do you do to uncertainties when you are multiplyig with more than one of a value?

Answer 4

You add another percentage error value everytime you use that value, therefore v² is percentage error of v added twice

Question 5

How do you find the error for a range of repeated readings?

Answer 5

Find the spread/range of the values and divide that by 2, the average of the readings has that error

Question 6

Define accuracy

Answer 6

How close a value is to the accepted value e.g a point on a graph to the line of best fit

Question 7

Define precision

Answer 7

How well known a value is e.g to how many significant figues a value is known