A laboratory experiment uses a column of an unknown incompressible liquid to measure gravitational acceleration. A researcher measures a gauge pressure of 2.20×104Pa at a point 25.0cm below the liquid’s free surface. A separate density measurement later yields 880kgm−3.
(a) Using the pressure reading and depth, calculate the experimental value of the local gravitational acceleration gexp.
(b) The accepted value at the laboratory location is 9.79ms−2. Compute the percent error of the experimental value.
(c) Identify two plausible experimental sources of error that could account for the difference between gexp and the accepted value, explaining how each source would affect the calculated result.