Qualification > Sciences
Physics Prac Sig Figs
missbeautiful789:
The attached file cleared up alot of things alot for me.
read from page 16
Deadly_king:
--- Quote from: $!$RatJumper$!$ on November 03, 2010, 05:20:07 pm ---awesum thank you :) and for time how many sig figs? and time period
--- End quote ---
That will depend on the stopwatch used.
A digital one usually give values upto 4sf. Hence you can note the times to 4sf. ;)
$!$RatJumper$!$:
ok. so say u have the mean time as 14.62 sec for 20 oscillations. would we write our time period as 0.7310 ? (i dont think we can go up to that accuracy)
$!$RatJumper$!$:
ps. the 5th point on this site says something else. could you please clarify why to 2 d.p
http://www.cottinghams.com/david/pracs.shtml
Deadly_king:
--- Quote from: $!$RatJumper$!$ on November 03, 2010, 05:38:07 pm ---ps. the 5th point on this site says something else. could you please clarify why to 2 d.p
http://www.cottinghams.com/david/pracs.shtml
--- End quote ---
Yeah the time you measured should be recorded to 2 d.p since the stopwatch gives values to 2 d.p
But the periodic time, it is being calculated by averaging and you should state it to the same number of significant figures as the time recorded and not to the same d.p
Of course you can't time upto this accuracy but since it is a calculated value, you can state it to 4sf.
Marking schemes usually ask for the same number of sf as the time recorded or one better. ;)
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