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0.5 pounds
= ------------- = 0.0035
142 pounds
0.5 pounds
= ------------ * 100% = 0.35%
142 pounds
= 333 cm
= 5 cm
= 186.020 cm
= 2.003 cm
To calculate the volume, she multiplies together the length, width and depth:
volume = L * W * D = (5.56 m) * (3.12 m) * (2.94 m)
= 51.00 m^3
In this situation, since each measurement enters the calculation as a multiple to the first power
(not squared or cubed), one can find the percentage uncertainty in the result by adding
together the percentage uncertainties in each individual measurement:
= 8.8%
Therefore, the uncertainty in the volume (expressed in cubic meters, rather than a percentage) is
= 4.49 m^3
Therefore,
volume = 51.00 +/- 4.49 m^3
= 51.00 m +/- 8.8%
If one quantity appears in a calculation raised to a power p, it's the same as multiplying the
quantity p times; one can use the same rule, like so:
Fred's pool is a perfect cube. He measures the length of one side to be
length L = 8.03 +/- 0.25 meters
= 8.03 m +/- 3.1%
The volume of Fred's cubical pool is simply
3
volume = L
= 517.8 m^3
Just as before, one can calculate the uncertainty in the volume by adding the percentage
uncertainties in each quantity:
percentage uncertainty in volume = (percentage uncertainty in L) +
(percentage uncertainty in L) +
(percentage uncertainty in L)
= 3.1% + 3.1% + 3.1%
= 9.3%
But another way to write this is using the power p = 3 times the uncertainty in the length:
= 3 * 3.1%
= 9.3%
When the power is not an integer, you must use this technique of multiplying the percentage
uncertainty in a quantity by the power to which it is raised. If the power is negative, discard the
negative sign for uncertainty calculations only.
145 mA - 115 mA mA
"min" slope = ------------------ = 5.45 ----
10.5 V - 5.0 V V
152 mA - 106 mA mA
"max" slope = ------------------ = 9.20 ----
10 V - 5.0 V V
mA
Uncertainty in slope is 0.5 * (9.20 - 5.45) = 1.875 ----
V
There are at most two significant digits in the slope, based on the uncertainty. So, I would say the
graph shows
mA
slope = 7.3 +/- 1.9 ----
V
Percent difference
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Contents
[hide]
• 1 Formula
• 2 Percent error
• 3 References
• 4 See also
[edit] Formula
The equation for determining the percent difference, (assuming both x1 and x2 are positive), by
comparing values x1 and x2 is:
In sentence form, one is dividing the absolute difference of the two values by the average value
of x1 and x2. Because this equation contains the absolute function, percent difference will always
be positive (except when x1 and x2 are both negative) and therefore it does not matter which
value one assigns to the variables (x1 and x2) used in these equations shown in this article. A
simplified form of the equation can be calculated as,
Both values (x1 and x2) must contain the same units in order to be compared correctly with one
another. And as mentioned before, a zero percent difference is optimum and the higher the
percent value, the less precision of the two values.
One final note to make is that a lot of confusion lies in mistakenly assuming that percent
difference is the same as percent error. The difference is that percent difference is comparing two
experimental values, whereas percent error compares one experimental value with the
actual/accepted value.
The numerator should be the Experimental value minus the Accepted value and not the other
way around. By using the equation shown above, the result will be positive only when the
experimental value is greater than the accepted and the result will be negative only when the
experimental value is less than the accepted.
This is a very important outcome. By avoiding the absolute function when calculating for the
percent error, the results will give both the reader and author more information. If the percent
error is negative, the reader knows immediately that the experimental value is short of the
accepted (goal) value. If the percent error is positive, the reader knows that the experimental
value is above the accepted (goal) value. This technique of solving the percent error value
becomes very helpful whenever an accepted value imposes a lower or upper limit for all
experimental (measured) values.
A rough example would be the goal to determine the speed of light. If an experiment produced a
speed that is greater than the speed of light, the reader will know immediately from a positive
percent error that something is wrong. The actual value will place the "no greater than" limit on
all measured values. Therefore, only negative percent errors should be expected! Using the
absolute function will hide this insight and important information and could be devastating to
relevant experiments.
Physics Lab Tutorials
Often, laboratory experiments are designed to determine the value of well-known physical quantities such
as the value of π or the acceleration due to earth's gravity, g. Since these quantities have accepted or
true values, we can calculate the percent error between our measurement of the value and the
accepted value with the formula
Sometimes, we will compare the results of two measurements of the same quantity. For instance, we may
use two different methods to determine the speed of a rolling body. In this case, since there is not one
accepted value for the speed of a rolling body, we will use the percent difference to determine the
similarity of the measurements. This is found by dividing the absolute difference of the two measured
values by their average, or