Errors in Measurement
A student measures the time period of 100 oscillations of a simple pendulum four times. The data set is 90 s, 91 s, 95 s and 92 s. If the minimum division in the measuring clock is 1 s, then the reported mean time should be:
Show answer and solution
Answer: (c)
- Mean
- Absolute deviations: ; mean absolute error
- The clock reads only to 1 s, so the error is rounded to : .
- So the answer is (c) s.