Experiment (1) Report

Significant Figures & Errors

Course Number: Physics 315503111 Instructor: ………..……..…..

Credit Hours:1 Instructor: …...………..…….

Name: heba dauood mousa albazlamit

Date: 7/3/2021

Partner’s Names: Dr eshraq Section: section one

Introduction and Theory:

The significant figures of a number are those digits that carry meaning
contributing to its accuracy. Generally, this includes all digits except:

 Leading and trailing zeros where they serve merely as place holders to indicate
the scale of the number.
 Spurious digits introduced, for example, by calculations carried out to greater
accuracy than that of the original data, or measurements reported to a greater precision
than the equipment supports.

The concept of significant figures is often used in connection with rounding to n

significant figures is a more general-purpose technique than rounding to n decimal
places, since it handles numbers of different scales in a uniform way. The term
"significant figures" can also refer to a crude form of error representation based
around significant figure rounding.

1-1) Identifying significant digits:

The rules for identifying significant digits when writing or interpreting numbers are as
follows:

 All non-zero digits (1 to 9) in any number are considered significant. Example:

167.45 have five significant figures: 1, 6, 7, 4 and 5.

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 Zeros appearing anywhere between two non-zero digits are significant.
Example: 103.24 have five significant figures: 1, 0, 3, 2 and 4.
 Leading zeros are not significant. For example, 0.00056 has two significant
figures: 5 and 6.
 Trailing zeros in a number containing a decimal point are significant. For
example, 12.9800 have six significant figures: 1, 2, 9, 8, 0 and 0. The number
0.00125600 still has only six significant figures (the zeros before the 1 are not
significant), In addition, 120.00 have five significant figures. This convention clarifies
the precision of such numbers; for example, if a result accurate to four decimal places
is given as 12.34 then it might be understood that only two decimal places of accuracy
are available, stating the result as 12.3400 makes clear that it is accurate to four
decimal places.
 The significance of trailing zeros in a number not containing a decimal point can
be ambiguous. For example, it may not always be clear if a number like 1200 is
accurate to the nearest unit (and just happens coincidentally to be an exact multiple of
a hundred) or if it is only shown to the nearest hundred due to rounding or
uncertainty, various conventions exist to address this issue:

o A bar may be placed over the last significant digit; any trailing zeros following

this are insignificant. For example, 13 00 has three significant figures (and hence
indicates that the number is accurate to the nearest ten).
o The last significant figure of a number may be underlined; for example,
"20000" has two significant figures.
o A decimal point may be placed after the number; for example "100." indicates
specifically that three significant figures are meant.

However, these conventions are not universally used, and it is often necessary to
determine from context whether such trailing zeros are intended to be significant, if
all else fails, the level of rounding can be specified explicitly. The abbreviation s. f. is
sometimes used, for example "20 000 to 2 s. f." or "20 000 (2sftwo significant-
figures)". Alternatively, the uncertainty can be stated separately and explicitly, as in
20 000 ± 1%, so that significant-figures rules do not apply.

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 A number with all zero digits (e.g. 0.000) has no significant digits, because the
uncertainty is larger than the actual measurement.

1-2) Significant figures:

The simplest definition for a significant figure is digit (0-9) that actually represents
some quantity that has a meaning, zeros that are used to locate a decimal point are not
considered significant figures. Examples of Significant figures are given below:

Measured Value Number of Significant

Figures
102 3

1.43 3

1.530 4

0.00123 3
0.001230 4

Handling significant figures in calculation follow two major rules:

A. WHEN ADDING OR SUBTRACTING QUANTITIES :

The number of decimal places in the result should equal the smallest number of
decimal places of any term in the sum (or difference).

A.1. Example:

51.4 – 1.67 = 49.7

7146 – 12.8 = 7133

20.8 + 18.72 + 0.851 = 40.4

B. WHEN MULTIPLYING OR DIVIDING QUANTITIES :

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The number of significant figures in the final answer is the same as the number of
significant figures in the least accurate of the quantities being multiplied (or divided).

B.1. Example:

2.6 31.7 = 82 not 82.42

5.3 /748 = 0.0071 not 0.00708556

C. NUMBER OF DECIMAL PLACES:

The measured value x must equal those of the corresponding uncertainty x. Some
examples of correctly written measurement are given as:

(L ± L) = (3.004 ± 0.002) m

(m±m) = (41.2 ± 0.4) kg.

Note: how the number of decimal places of the measured value and its corresponding
uncertainty agree.

C.1. Examples:

Rounding to 2 significant figures:

 12 300 becomes 12 000

 12 stays as 12
 0.00123 becomes 0.0012
 0.1 becomes 0.10 (the trailing zero indicates that we are rounding to 2
significant figures).
 0.02084 becomes 0.021
 0.0125 becomes 0.012 in unbiased rounding, while it is 0.013 in biased.
 19 800 becomes 20 000

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1-3) Objective:

a) To learn how to produce an accurate, complete and clear record of measured

quantities.
b) To demonstrate the importance of estimating uncertainties in measurements.
c) To know how to determine the precision of the final result from primary
measured quantities.
d) To learn how to draw conclusions from different types of plotted graphs.

1-4) Uncertainty in measurements:

In an ideal world, the measurements are are supposed to be perfect, however in the
real world, where the measurements are performed using devices that are never
perfect; because of their limitation. The imperfection inherent in all measurements is
called an uncertainty.

In all physics laboratory work, every measurement must be combined with its
uncertainity as well as its unit, then every measurement must take the following from:

Measurement = (measured value ± uncertainty) unit.

Below are some examples of measurements:

V = (4.00 ± 0.02) m/s,

and:

G = (6.67 ± 0.01)× 10-11 N.m2/ Kg2.

If g is measured experimentally and found to be:

g = (9.801 ± 0.003) m/s2

That means the experimentally determined value of g can lie anywhere between the
values:

9.801 + 0.003 m/s2 and 9.801 – 0.003 m/s2

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or

9.798 m/s2  g  9.804 m/s2.

As uncertainty is reduced, the “width” of the g values is narrowed and the

measurement as a whole becomes more precise. Looking over the measurements
given above, paying close attention to the number of decimal places in the measured
values and the combined uncertainties, you should note that they always must agree,
and this fact is extremely important:

In a measurement, the measured value and its uncertainty must always have the same
number of decimal places.

To record a measured value follow the most commonly used rule: When
determining an uncertainty from a measuring device, first determine the smallest
quantity that can be resolved on the device, then the uncertainty in the measurement is
taken to be half of this value.

For example; suppose you used a meter stick that is divided into centimeters to
determine the length of a rod. The measured value from the scale is 6 cm, the
uncertainty of this measurement is 1/21 cm = 0.5 cm. so the recorded value is (6.0 
0.5) cm.

1-5) Precision of measurements:

The precision of a measurement is given as the ratio between the measurement’s

uncertainty and its measured value: The precision of a measurement (z ± z) is
defined as z/z. The precision is usually written in the form of a percentage. Such as
(z/z)  100% either the fractional form or percentage form is acceptable, just
remember to specify percentages by the % sign. Precision is away of telling how
much a measurement deviates from “perfection”, for example, a measurement of
(2.00 ± 0.01) m has a precision of 0.5% (or one part in 200). A measurement with
zero uncertainty or a “perfect” measurement can never exist in the real world.

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1-6) Propagation of uncertainty:

In a laboratory work we need to combine measurements using addition, subtraction,

multiplication and division. We make use of the propagation of uncertainty to
combine measurements with the assumption that if the measurements are combined
then the uncertainty increases – hence the uncertainty propagates through the
calculation.

A. WHEN ADDING OR SUBTRACTING TWO MEASUREMENTS:

The uncertainty in the final measurement is the sum of the actual uncertainties in the
original measurements:

If:

C=A±B (1-1)

Then:

(A ± A) ± (B ± B) = (A ± B) ± (A + B) (1-2)

So:

C=A + B (1-3)

The result is written in the form:

C ± C (1-4)

Example:

Calculate the sum of two lengths (2.04±0.04) m and (4.30 ± 0.01) m.

Solution:

Using addition rule, we find that

(2.04 ± 0.04) m + (4.30 ± 0.01) m = (6.34 ± 0.05) m.

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For the subtraction case; using addition rule, we find that

(4.30 ± 0.01) m - (2.04 ± 0.04) m = (2.26 ± 0.05) m.

B. WHEN MULTIPLYING OR DIVIDING TWO MEASUREMENTS

For the multiplication of two quantities the uncertainty in the final result is found by
summing the precisions of the original measurements and then multiplying that sum
by the product of the measurement values:

C=AB (1-5)

(A±A)(B±B) = (AB)[1±(A/A+B/B)+(A/AB/B)], (1-6)

the last term is negligible, also for the division the result will be:

C=A/B (1-7)

(A ± A)/(B ± B)= (A ± A)/(B ± B) (B ± B)/(B ± B) (1-8)

(AB) [1 ± (A/A + B/B)+ (A/A  B/B)]/ (BB) [1 ± (B/B + B/B) + (B/B 

B/B)]=

(A ± A)/(B ± B)  (A/B) [1 ± (A/A + B/B)] (1-9)

So in both cases:

C/C=A/A + B/B. (1-10)

1-5) Examples (multiplication):

Determine the area of a rectangular sheet with length (1.50 ± 0.02) m and width (0.20
± 0.01) m.

Solution:

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The area (C ± C) is then:

(A ± A) = (1.50 ± 0.02)

(B ± B)= (0.20 ± 0.01)

C=AB=0.30 m2

C/C=A/A + B/B

C/0.30=0.02/1.50+0.01/0.20

C=0.019,

round to two digits:

C=0.02

Therefore, the area is:

C ± C0.30±0.02 m2

Notice that the final values for uncertainty in the above calculation were determined
by multiplying the product of length and the width outside the bracket by the sum of
the two precisions (0.02/1.50 + 0.01/0.20) inside the bracket. Also, notice how the
final results for the area was rounded. This following the rules of significant figures
discussed before.

1-6) Examples (division):

Find the average speed of runner who travels a distance of (100.0 ± 0.2) m in (9.85 ±
0.12) s.

Solution:

Let v be the average speed, v=distance/time,

v=d/t.

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Then

t
(d ± d)/ (t ± t) = (d/t) [1 ± (d/d + )]
t

v± v = (100.0/9.855) [1 ± (0.2/100.0 + 0.12/9.85)]

v± v = 10.15 [1 ± (0.00200 + 0.01218)] m/s

v± v = 10.15 [1 ± 0.01418] m/s

v± v  (10.2 ± 0.1) m/s

We can get the same result by using the following derivation:

a) In case of multiplication:

C=A*B → ln C = ln A+ln B,

by differentiation we get

C A B
  .
C A B

b) In case of division:

C=A/B → ln C = ln A-ln B,

by differentiation we get

C A B
  ,
C A B

by transforming (-) to (+), since the uncertainity always added and nover subtracted.

In general if C  An B m or C  An / B m ,

then

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 C nA mB
  .
C A B

1-7) Statistical Uncertainty-Mean standard deviation and standard error of the

mean (SEM):

For a repeated measurement that experiences random uncertainties. Statistical

treatments give the most likely uncertainties; a statistical mean value is a simple
average for a set of repeated measurements. For N repetitions of a measurement xi,
the statistical mean is written as:

x = 1/N [x1 + x2 + x3 + …+ xN], or average value of x is

N
 xi
i 1
x (1-13)
N

To know by how many measurements deviated from the mean value, we have to
know the standard deviation (). To determine the standard deviation, first the mean
value x must be calculated, then  is calculated by taking the sum of the squares of
deviations of each point from the mean and dividing that sum by N-1 as given by:

N
 ( x  xi ) 2
 i 1
(1-14)
N 1

1-8) Graphs:

Student must use the calculations, graphs and tables to explain the results from their
experiment. On a further note, the graphical representation (graphs and tables) must
be clearly labeled, since they represent the experimental results which can be used to
extract farther informations beyond the measured quantities. In the following, the
important steps to represent the experimental data are mensioned as a general way of
drowing a graph:

a. Give the name of graph (Legend).

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b. Label the axes clearly with units, try to use the simplest division for the axes.
c. For a better accuracy try to cover as much as possible of the graph paper area.
d. Draw small circles around each data point.
e. A ruler or a flexible curve should be used to draw a smooth curve passing
through as many points as possible, points that are not lying on the curve should
equally be distributed on either side of the curve (or line), scatter of points a round the
best curve or line.
f. For a straight line the relationship between different quantities X and Y is
represented as:

Y  mX  b , (1-15)

where the slope is:

Y Y Y
m  2 1 , (1-16)
X X 2  X 1

The coordinates (X1, Y1) and (X2, Y2) are different from that of the points in the table
(experimental data). The value of b (the vertical intercept), is that of Y when X =0.

Qustions:

1-1 A carpet is to be installed in a room whose length is measured to be 12.71 m and

whose width is measured to be 5.46 m. Find the area and error in the area of the room.
(∆L=0.01)

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1-2 In(1-1 ) calculate the circumference of the room and the error in it .

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1-3 . A solid piece of lead has a mass of 23.94 g and a volume of 2.1 cm3 calculate
the density of lead in (g/ cm3)

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1-4. Find the resulte of the following:(in terms of significant figures)

1.469 + 11.18 + 2.1062 =------------, 3.362 + 121.4 = ------------

1.67 + 5.9 = ------------, 756 + 37.2 + 0.83 +2.5 = ------------

5.46 ÷132 = --------------, 5.46 × 13.2 = -------------

1-5 . Determine the area of rectangular sheet with length ( 3.4 ±0.02) and width
(4.2±0.01)m

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1-6. If statistical mean value of the gravitational acceleration in some experiement is

9.7 m/s2 and accepted value is 9.8 m/s2 then percentage error is?

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