Measurement
-is a quantity that has both a NUMBER AND A UNIT
measurement without units are meaningless
units typically used is science are those of the International system of units (SI)
SI Units (The international system of units)
- SI measurements-- SI units are defined in terms of standards of measurement
-the standards are objects or natural phenomena that are constant values, easy to preserve and reproduce, they are also practical in size.
-They are called SI units because of the French name the systeme international dunites
Metre
Symbol - m
Quantity - length
Kilogram
Symbol - kg
Quantity - mass
Second
Symbol - s
Quantity - time
Ampere
Symbol - A
Quantity - Electric Current
Kelvin
Symbol - K
Quantity - temperature
Candela
Symbol - cd
Quantity - luminous intensity
Mole
Symbol - mol
Quantity - amount of substance
Accuracy
-closeness of measurement to the correct or accepted value of the quantity measured
- to evaluate the accuracy of a measurement, the measure value must be compared to the accepted or correct value
Precision
- closeness of a set of measurements of the same quantity made in the same way
- to evaluate the precision of a measurement, you must compare the values to two or more repeated measurements
Accepted Value
- is the theoretical value, published or textbook value, or the calculated value
Experimental Value
is the value measured in the lab
- error is the difference between the experimental value and the accepted value
- error = experimental value - accepted value
- sources of error:
- instrurment malfunction
- Human mistake (carelessness or haste)
Scientific Notation
- we will use scientific notation when working with extremely large or small numbers
- numbers are written in the format: M*10^n M is a number greater than 1 but less than "n" is a whole number exponent
- a positive exponent indicates a BIG number
- a negative exponent indicates a small number
Determining Error
- percent error: describes the accuracy of an individual value or of an average experimental value when compared quantitively with the correct or accepted value
- percent error experimental - accepted *100
Accepted