wow, look at this %error in a physics lab i did...

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,420
1,600
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The percentage error in our experiment in relation to our measurement of the acceleration of gravity is 57.14%.



my group rocks ;)
 

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
38,107
433
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Originally posted by: NeuroSynapsis
The percentage error in our experiment in relation to our measurement of the acceleration of gravity is 57.14%.



my group rocks ;)

Good lord, were you operating in an oil bath?

Viper GTS
 

AShadeOfClear

Banned
Jul 19, 2001
283
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My group pretended like we were working then towards the end of the lab we would look at other people's work and make up similar numbers.
 

Bobomatic

Senior member
Dec 31, 2001
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nice.
Physics labs are fun Chemistry labs on the other hand, ...
ugh, chemistry. My percent error was like .025%. Then I realized I did my percent error calculation wrong.
 

AvesPKS

Diamond Member
Apr 21, 2000
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Heh...when I was doing an experiment to measure the earth's gravity, it came out to 1000m/s/s.
 

TheOmegaCode

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2001
2,954
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Physics labs are fun Chemistry labs on the other hand, ...
Chem lab's rock! Today I measured out 2.5 mL of Ammonia but when I went to go weigh it, it only weighed 2.2g. My teacher saw this and looked at me like I was an idiot (because the density of Amonia is ~1), luckilly as it turns out, my pipet wasn't calibrated very accuratley, and we threw that sucker away... It was a titration lab, btw...
 

arcas

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2001
2,155
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Ahhhh. Physics experiments gone awry. Brings back lots of memories :) (I was a PhD student in particle physics before I decided there's more money in software development).

I recall as an undergraduate doing an experiment to determine the mass of an electron. None of us really knew what we were doing and the grad student monitoring the lab was too busy trying to keep people from sticking capacitors into light sockets to help us. Anyway, the apparatus consisted of a big honkin DC power supply, a smaller DC power supply, some helmholtz coils, and a big tangled mess of wires. They say experience is the best teacher. Well, I learned that you do not place an ammeter in parallel in a circuit. When I flipped the power switch on the big PSU, the room lights dimmed and I saw the PSU's built-in ammeter exceed 100 amps briefly. My partner was monitoring at the real ammeter (the one that I'd wired up in parallel) and said the faceplate glowed blue. The needle pegged so hard that it bent at a 60 degree angle. Needless to say it was toast. :D

One of my favorite physics experiment webpages is this one. I must've seen it 50 times and it still makes me chuckle. :)
 

MajesticMoose

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2000
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I seem to remember in my high school physics lab getting a percent error in the hundreds or thousands. The last chem lab i did it was closer to 1/2 percent (the best in class btw:))