Errors

Absolute error is uncertainty, D, expressed as ±D.

Percentage error is absolute error expressed as a percentage, to one significant figure.

1 Errors are uncertainties in measurement, not mistakes, and not the difference between a student's value, and the accepted value found in a book.

2 Student's often refer to mistakes as "human error". There is no such thing.

3 The error in the slope of a graph is found by fitting extreme lines within error bars.

4 The likely error in a set of independent measurements may be expressed as half the range, the range divided by the number values, the average deviation from the mean, or the standard deviation from the mean.

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