Uncertainty (DONE)

Question 1

What is uncertainty?

Answer 1

Uncertainty is the range of values that a measurement is expected to fall within, given a certain level of confidence or probability.

Question 1

What is the equation for uncertainty?

Answer 1

uncertainty = range of values / 2

(± is what we must put in front of the answer)

Question 2

What is the range? (not the same as maths)

Answer 2

The maximum and minimum values of the independent or dependent variables.

For example a range of distances may be quoted as either:

‘From 10 cm to 50 cm’ (10-50)

or

‘From 50 cm to 10 cm’ (50-10)

(we need to take them away like maths when calculating the range eg. uncertainty = range of values / 2)

Question 3

What must you put in front of the value we get for uncertainty to show the true value lies in between? (its not a unit)

Answer 3

± (value)

Mean 1.64s

-0.18 = minimum value 1.46s

+0.18 = maximum value 1.82s

true value is in between 1.46s and 1.82s so to write this we an put a ± infront of our answer.