A laboratory group wishes to determine the width of an unknown slit. They shine a 488nm laser through the slit onto a screen 2.50m away. The distance between the first dark bands on opposite sides of the central bright band is measured to be (18.4±0.3)mm.
(a) Determine the width of the slit based on the measurement.
(b) Calculate the percent uncertainty in the width that results from the stated measurement uncertainty.
(c) The slit’s manufacturer specifies the width to be 0.065mm. Compute the percent discrepancy between your result and the manufacturer’s value and discuss, in terms of accuracy and precision, what the comparison reveals about the experiment.