9TH March 2007 EMT 321

9TH March 2007 EMT 321

 Errors vs. Mistakes
• Measurement Error and Experimental
Error.
• Measurement error is the unavoidable
error that occurs due to the limitations
inherent to any measurement instrument.
Any measurement in the real world is an
approximation. It is not really possible to
guarantee that an object is exactly 1 meter
long since any measuring instrument has a
limit to its accuracy.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
For example, our centimeter ruler can only
measure to the nearest tenth of a centimeter
and the two-pan balance can only measure
mass to the nearest gram.
• Experimental error is the variation in
measurement that results from the inability
to control extraneous variables
in an experiment.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• These two types of error are closely related.
Let’s consider two examples of measurement
in real-world contexts to get some idea of the
meaning of measurement and experimental
error:
• Example 1: A student is selected from the
class and every student measures the
circumference of her head to the nearest
tenth of a centimeter. Most students get
between 47 and 49 centimeters. One student
gets 37.4 centimeters.
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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• Example 2: Students drop a ball from a
height of 80 centimeters three times to see
how high it bounces. They get 41 centimeters,
45 centimeters, and 44 centimeters.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• In Examples 1 and 2 there were repeated
measurements of the same thing that
produced seemingly different answers. The
fact that most students obtained slightly
different answers in Example 1 is due to slight
variations in how they performed the
measurement—where they placed the tape
measure, how tight they held it, etc.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• All these measurements are “close” to each
other. However, the student whose
measurement was 37.4 centimeters probably
made a mistake such as reading the tape
measure incorrectly or placing the tape
measure in the wrong position. In
mathematics, we try to distinguish between
the words “error” and “mistake”.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• Most of the measurements in Example 1
involved some measurement error, but those
measurements were correct. However, the
student who measured 37.4 centimeters
must have made a mistake, an error resulting
from carelessness, inattention, or
misunderstanding.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• In Example 2, it is not surprising that
repeating the activity results in a different
measurement. It’s hard to measure how high
the ball bounces, since the ball does not stop
at the height of its bounce and wait for you to
measure its distance from the floor.

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 Errors vs. Mistakes
• Also, there can be slight variations caused
by different parts of the ball being “bouncier”
or different spots on the floor being
“bouncier.” This is a typical example of the
experimental error that results from the
inability to control all the fixed variables in an
experiment.

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 ERRORS
THERE ARE THREE BASIC TYPES OF ERRORS AS
FOLLOWS:

• Number representation error

• Round-off error
• Truncation error

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 What are Number representation errors.

• Number representation errors are errors

that occur when numbers with no exact value
are approximated. For example, numbers
with infinite decimal places.

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 Number representation errors
• Numerical calculations usually involve
numbers that cannot be represented exactly
by a finite number of digits. For instance, the
arithmetical operation of division often gives
a number which does not terminate; the
decimal (base 10) representation of 2/3 is one
example. Even a number such as 0.1 which
terminates in decimal form would not
terminate if expressed in binary form.

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 How do we work with these during
calculations?
There are two main ways to counteract this
problem.

1. By use of approximation on the basis of the

number of significant figures (s).
2. By the use of floating point notation or
scientific notation.

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 Number representation errors
• In order to carry out a numerical calculation
involving such numbers, one must
approximate them by a representation
involving a finite number of significant digits
(S), which in most cases, is quite small. To five
significant digits (5S ), 2/3 is represented by
0.66667 ,for example. This is not an exact
representation, but is correct to within half a
unit of the fifth significant digit.

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 Number representation errors
• If the numbers to be represented are very
large or very small, it is convenient to write
them in floating point notation (for example,
the speed of light is 2.99792 x 10^8 m/s, or
the electronic charge is 1.6022 x 10^-19
Coulomb).

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 Number representation errors
• As indicated, one separates the significant
digits (the mantissa) from the power of ten
(the exponent); the form in which the
exponent is chosen so that the magnitude of
the mantissa is less than 10, but not less than
1, is referred to as scientific notation.

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 Round-off-error

• The simplest way of reducing the number of

significant digits in the representation of a
number is merely to ignore the unwanted
digits. This procedure, known as chopping,
was used by many early computers. For
example, pi ;which is 3.14159… ,chopped to
four decimal places (4D ), is 3.1415

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 Round-off error

• A more common and better procedure is

rounding, which involves adding 5 to the first
unwanted digit and then chopping. When
rounded, pi is 3.1416; the representation
3.1416 is correct to five significant digits (5S).

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 Round-off error

• The error involved in the reduction of the

number of digits is called round-off error.
Since pi is 3.14159.. , note that chopping has
introduced much more round-off error than
rounding.

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 Truncation error

• Numerical results are often obtained by

truncating an infinite series or iterative process.
For instance stopping a Taylor series or a Fourier
series at a value of an arbitrary nth term within a
specified range of terms to get as accurate result
as possible.
 2 1 1 1 
f ( x)   cos x  cos 3 x  cos 5 x  cos 7 x  ...
4  9 25 49 

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 Ways to reduce Round-off-error
&Truncation error

• Round-off-error can be reduced by working

to more significant digits while truncation
errors can be reduced by retaining more
terms in the series or more steps in the
iteration; this, of course, involves extra work.

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 Mistakes
• In the language of Numerical Analysis, a
mistake (or blunder) is not an error! A
mistake is due to fallibility (usually human,
not machine). Mistakes may be trivial, with
little or no effect on the accuracy of the
calculation, or they may be so serious as to
render the calculated results quite wrong.

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 Mistakes
• There are three things which may help to
eliminate mistakes:
– Care;
– checks, avoiding repetition;
– knowledge of the common sources of mistakes.

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 Common Sources of Mistakes.

• Common mistakes include: transposition of

digits (for example, reading 6238 as 6328);
misreading of repeated digits (for example,
reading 62238 as 62338); misreading of
tables (for example, referring to a wrong line
or a wrong column); incorrectly positioning a
decimal point; overlooking signs (especially
near sign changes).

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 ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE ERRORS
In the real world, it is not possible to measure
quantities exactly. It is therefore important
that you are able to assess the inaccuracy of
your measurements, and also that you should
be able to calculate the effect of combining
errors from more than one reading.

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 Absolute Errors
Absolute error is the amount of physical error in a
measurement. Let’s say a meter rule is used to
measure a given distance. The error is good to
±1mm. This is the absolute error of the
measurement. That is, absolute error = ±1mm
(0.001m).
Quoting an error is not an admission of poor
measurement on your part. It is just acknowledging
the limitations of the measuring instruments.

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 Relative Errors
Although absolute errors are useful, they do
no necessarily give an indication of the
importance of an error. An error of 1cm is
very significant in a measurement of 2cm, but
virtually irrelevant in a measurement of 10m.
For this reason, the more useful way to
express the error, is as a relative error.

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 absoluteerror
relative error 
calculated value
Suppose one of the readings for the
measurement the student’s head was
48.3 cm ±1mm, then the relative error is:
0.001m
 0.021
0.483m

Expressed as a percentage: 2.1%

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 Importance of Relative Error
• Refer to example (1)

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 Significant figures
A significant figure is any digit 1 to 9 and any
zero which is not a place holder. Thus, in
1.350 there are 4 significant figures since the
zero is not needed to make sense of the
number. In a number like 0.00320 there are 3
significant figures --the first three zeros are
just place holders.

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 Importance of Significant figures
Suppose two objects are measured to have a mass
of 9.9 g and 0.3163 g. What is the total mass? We
write the numbers with question marks at places
where we lack information. Thus 9.9???? g and
0.3163? g. Adding them with the decimal points
lined up we get
09.9????
00.3163?
10.2???? = 10.2 g

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 Rules when doing calculations
The uncertainty should be rounded off to one
or two significant figures. If the leading figure
in the uncertainty is a 1, we use two
significant figures, otherwise we use one
significant figure. Then the answer should be
rounded to match.

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Example
Round off
z = 12.0349 cm and Δz = 0.153 cm.
Since Δz begins with a 1, we round off Δz to
two significant figures:
Δz = 0.15 cm. Hence, round z to have the
same number of decimal places:
z = (12.03 ± 0.15) cm.
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 ERROR PROPAGATION
Suppose two measured quantities x and y
have uncertainties, Δx and Δy, determined by
procedures described in previous sections: we
would report (x ± Δ x), and (y ± Δ y). From the
measured quantities a new quantity, z, is
calculated from x and y. What is the
uncertainty, Δ z, in z?

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 ERROR PROPAGATION
There are two (2) methods for calculating the
error propagation when doing calculations.
There is a simplified version of the proper
statistical treatment and also there is a full
statistical treatment (using standard
deviations). Both types will be looked at.

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Addition and Subtraction:
z=x+y or z = x – y

Using the simplified method:

z  x  y

Using the full statistical method:

z  (x )  (y )
2 2
 Multiplication by an exact number

When multiplying by an exact number the

uncertainty is also multiplied by the same
number.

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 Multiplication and Division:
z = x y or z = x/y
When doing Multiplication or Division the
calculation is done in the form of Relative
Errors, i.e. add all the relative errors to get
the relative error in the result.
z x y z
2
 x   y 
2

  or     
z x y z  x   y 

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Products of powers: zx ym n

Using the simplified method:

z x y
 m n
z x y
Or the complete standard deviation method:
2 2
z  mx   ny 
    
z  x   y 

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 Mixtures of multiplication, division,
addition, subtraction, and powers.
Example:
w = (4.52 ± 0.02) cm,
x = (2.0 ± 0.2) cm,
y = (3.0 ± 0.6) cm.
Find z = w x +y²

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 Proof / Derivation of Rules
Addition
z  x y
z z
1 1
x y
z  x z  y
z   x  y
2 2

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The total error in z is obtained by combining the
individual contributions in quadrature:

 z   x  y
2 2

The basis of the quadrature addition is an

assumption that the measured quantities have
a Gaussian distribution about their mean
values

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 Proof / Derivation of Rules
z  xy
Multiplication z z
 y x
x y
z  yx z  xy
z  y 2 x 2  x 2 y 2
  x 2
 y 2

z  x y  2 
2 2
2 
 x y 

z x 
2
 y 
    
z  x   y 
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