Department of Applied Mechanics

APL 103

Experimental Methods
Semester I, 2020-21

L3

Murali R Cholemari
 True value: mean, median or mode?
• Limiting frequency distribution: complete information of the
experiment in a compact form
• Can we get a number (called the true value) that is representative of the data?
• To illustrate, referring to the earlier example; what is the expected number of
days on which it rains in say, Delhi?

• Let the frequency distribution be symmetric, with a single peak

• Most Logical to have the value at the central peak as the true
value
• Why? If any other value x1 is chosen, x2 is equally likely
• X is the mean
• X is the mode (greatest frequency)
• X is the madian – divides the area of the fdc into two
equal parts – measurements above and below X occur
equally likely.

• Any of the three – mean, median or mode can be used as true

value in this case
Asymmetrical distributions
• In case of asymmetrical distributions, mean, median and mode are all
different
• It is a matter of convention which is chosen as the true value
• Unless there are specific reasons for the contrary, the arithmetic
mean from the limiting frequency distribution is chosen as the true
value

mode
mean
Calculation of the mean
• Discrete value distribution:
X = 𝑥ҧ = 𝑥1 𝑓 𝑥1 + 𝑥2 𝑓 𝑥2 + ⋯ 𝑥𝑚 𝑓 𝑥𝑚 = ෍ 𝑥𝑖 𝑓 𝑥𝑖
𝑖

• Histogram:
1 1
• X = 𝑥ҧ = 𝑥1 + 𝑥0 𝑥1 − 𝑥0 𝑓 𝑥1 + 𝑥2 + 𝑥1 𝑥2 − 𝑥1 𝑓 𝑥2 + ⋯
2 2
1
𝑥 + 𝑥𝑚−1 𝑥𝑚 − 𝑥𝑚−1 𝑓 𝑥𝑚
2 𝑚

Central value rel. frequency

• Distribution curve:
∞
• X = 𝑥ҧ = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥𝑓 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥
Standard deviation and precision
• Same physical quantity being measured by different experiments, result in
limiting frequency distributions 𝐹1 𝑥 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐹2(𝑥)
∞ ∞
• The narrower curve has the taller peak since ‫׬‬−∞ 𝐹1 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝐹2 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 = 1
• Both have the same mean, X
• Intuitive: 𝐹1 𝑥 is more ‘precise’, since it is narrower
• How do we quantify this statement?
• Need a measure of the ‘breadth’ of the curves
• The breadth occurs because of the experiments will have errors to different
degrees: 𝜖 = −𝑋 + 𝑥 (X is the measure of true value)
𝐹1 𝑥

𝐹2 𝑥
Std. Deviation (contd.)
• The average error is zero and thus not an estimate of the width:
∞ ∞ ∞
𝜖ҧ = 𝑥 − 𝑋 = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥 − 𝑋 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 − 𝑋 ‫׬‬−∞ 𝐹
𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 = 𝑋 −
𝑋=0
• Average magnitude of error is given by the mean square error (mean
squared deviation or variance):
∞ ∞

𝜎 2 = න 𝜖 2 𝐹 𝑥 𝑑𝑥 = න 𝑥 − 𝑋 2 𝐹 𝑥 𝑑𝑥
−∞ −∞
• The root mean squared deviation 𝜎 is called the standard deviation
• Note that 𝜎 is a ‘choice’ for the measure of precision, but is a consistent
choice (we will see this later)
Std. Deviation - Definitions
• Discrete Distribution:
𝜎 2 = 𝜖 2 = 𝑥1 − 𝑋 2 𝑓 𝑥1 + 𝑥2 − 𝑋 2 𝑓 𝑥2 + ⋯ + 𝑥𝑚 − 𝑋 2 𝑓 𝑥𝑚 = ෍ 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑋 2 𝑓 𝑥𝑖
𝑖
1 2 1 2
• Histogram: 𝜎2
= 𝜖2 = 𝑥1 + 𝑥0 − 𝑋 𝑥1 − 𝑥0 𝑓 𝑥1 + ⋯ + 𝑥𝑚 + 𝑥𝑚−1 − 𝑋 (𝑥𝑚 −
2 2
𝑥𝑚−1 )𝑓 𝑥𝑚 =
2
1
෎ 𝑥 + 𝑥𝑖−1 − 𝑋 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖−1 𝑓 𝑥𝑖
2 𝑖
𝑖
∞
• Continuous Distribution: 𝜎2 = 𝜖 2 = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥 − X 2 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 expanding,
∞
∞ ∞ ∞

= න 𝑥 2 − 2𝑥𝑋 + 𝑋2 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 = න 𝑥 2 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 − 2𝑋 ඲ 𝑥𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 + 𝑋 2 න 𝐹 𝑥 𝑑𝑥
−∞ −∞ −∞
∞ −∞

න 𝑥 2 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 − 2𝑋𝑋 + 𝑋2 = 𝑥 2 − 𝑋 2 = 𝑥 2 − 𝑥ҧ 2 = 𝜎2
−∞
 Consistency between 𝜎 and 𝑋
• Suppose there is some other choice of the true value 𝑋𝑡 for the distribution
∞
𝐹 𝑥 . The mean square deviation is 𝜖 = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥 − 𝑋𝑡 2 𝐹 𝑥 𝑑𝑥
2

Minimise 𝜖 2 wrt 𝑋𝑡 .
∞
ⅆ 𝜖2 ⅆ ∞ ⅆ
= 0 = ⅆ𝑋 ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥 − 𝑋𝑡 2 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 = න 𝑥 − 𝑋𝑡 2 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 =>
ⅆ𝑋𝑡 𝑡 ⅆ𝑋
∞ −∞ 𝑡
‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥 − X𝑡 𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 =0 i.e.,
∞ ∞
𝑋𝑡 ‫׬‬−∞ 𝐹 𝑥 𝑑𝑥 = ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥𝐹 𝑥 ⅆ𝑥 i.e., 𝑋𝑡 = 𝑋 = 𝑥ҧ

• This justifies the choice of 𝑋 as the best estimate of true value and the choice of 𝜎 as the
best estimate of precision
Mode 𝑋෠
• Discrete value distribution: Value with the highest frequency
• Continuous distribution curve: Value at which the distribution curve
F(𝑥) is maximum
• Histogram: Value not obvious because there is an interval around the
peak value From similar triangles PQR and PST, with C being being the width
of the class interval, mode is given by
Δ1
𝑋෠ = L1 + 𝐶
(Δ1 + Δ2 )
Median
• Discrete value distribution: Middle of the group (n+1)/2 if n is odd
and the average of two middle values (n/2 and n/2+1) if n is even
• Histogram: Lies in the middle interval. Interpolate to find.
𝑛
𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛 = 𝑥𝐿 + [ − ෌ 𝑓𝑛 𝑥𝑖 ( 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖 − 1)]/ 𝑓𝑚𝑒ⅆ𝑖𝑎𝑛
2
Here 𝑥𝐿 is the lower bound of the median interval and 𝑓𝑚𝑒ⅆ𝑖𝑎𝑛 is the
interval value in the histogram
• Continuous frequency distribution curve: Such that the median
divides into two equal areas of 0.5 each