Measurement Introduction

Here are some common mistakes:

1. Fractional/Percent Uncertainty: Forgot to report percent uncertainty, which is required by the assignment (Line 3, see the original assignment on Blackboard.), see Section 3.3 of Taylor about how to calculate it.

2. Uncertainty: The uncertainty of a ruler should be 1mm (0.1cm) or 0.5mm (0.05mm, which is stated in Taylor's book but I cannot find it, if you find it, please tell me the page/section number, thank you in advance!), and that of vernier caliper should be either 0.1mm, or 0.05mm, or 0.02mm (depending on how many marks are there on the sliding scale). For more information, see this website for how to report the uncertainties of ruler and vernier caliper.

3. Significant Figures, especially when you calculate the average time in problems 7 & 8: see Section 2.2 of Taylor. (The significant digits should be the same as your measurement, more digits sounds to be more precise, but it is not.)

4. Uncertainty Propagation: see Section 3.3 of Taylor.

5. Uncertainty is different from deviation.

If you measure the diameter of a ball several times using a same equipment, say (x1, x2, x3, ..., xn) ± ux, from the uncertainty formulas the uncertainty of your average value is ux, not the standard deviation.

6. Naming your report: use "Lastname_Groupnumber_LabNumber_report.pdf" for your report, for example, "Einstein_B07_Lab0_report.pdf". And "Einstein"- or "lab"- or "untitled"-like names are not acceptable.

Notes:

1. The system will give me the similarity report automatically, so please don't copy others' reports (no one did this time).

2. I am just a 1st year graduate student who is about 4 years older than you, so please feel free to ask questions (but as for how to do labs, you should come up with your own ideas).

3. This lab is of only a few points, so do not worry about your grades. I am a newbie in working as a TA and leading labs, so let's work together and if you have suggestions (not how to do labs), please tell/email message me or send me a Facebook message!

4. The point of this lab is 10 and all of you did well on expressing what you did and how you measure the diameters, which is far beyond my expectation. However, the future labs will be graded with a total point of 30, and the rubric will be harsher, please read the assignments/book carefully. But if you did excellent, you may be rewarded by extra points! And if you make a little mistake, you may still get full points!