In this video we will discuss how to calculate uncertainties for your dependent variable.
We will talk about absolute uncertainties and percentage or fractional uncertainties.
This part of your IA is evaluated under the analysis criterion.
Let's see in the example IA how to work with absolute uncertainties.
We will calculate the absolute uncertainty for these values from the raw data table.
First, I briefly explain what I will do and then I show an example calculation.
As you can see, I take the largest and the smallest value from the five trials,
finite difference and divide the result by two.
Make sure that you round your final answer to the same number of decimal places as you used
in your calculation. Carry out these calculations for all of these columns,
but do not show these calculations in your IA, only include the final result in your process
data table. This is how absolute uncertainties should look like in the process data table.
The symbol is in italics, the unit is not. Next, let's calculate the percentage uncertainty.
Another name for percentage uncertainty is fractional uncertainty.
First, I briefly explain what I will do. These two values come from the process data table.
You can see them here. I divide the absolute uncertainty by the frequency value
multiplied by 100% and get 0.03%. Since 0.4 is the one significant figure,
I round my percentage uncertainty also to one significant figure.
I carry out this calculation for all of these values, but I do not show these calculations
in my IA. I just include the results here. This completes step five action two.
Now you know how to calculate uncertainties for your dependent variable.
In the next video, we will discuss how to plot your data on a graph.