A mass on a spring is timed for ten complete oscillations using a hand-held stopwatch…

PHYSICS · Multi-part · Fermi University Physics · Scientific Practice & Experimental Methods · Quantities, units and the practice of measurement · Uncertainty in measurement

Measurement and Method, Ch Repeated readings: scatter, the mean and the standard error

Problem

A mass on a spring is timed for ten complete oscillations using a hand-held stopwatch that resolves

0.01\,\mathrm{s}

. Five repeated timings give (s):

8.21,\ 8.25,\ 8.19,\ 8.23,\ 8.22

. ((a)) Calculate the mean time

\bar t

for ten oscillations and the sample standard deviation

s

. ((b)) Calculate the standard error of the mean,

\sigma_{\bar t}

. ((c)) State the bound you would assign to a single one of these timings, using the stopwatch's resolution alone.

Browse the problem library