Video Transcript
In an experiment, the atmospheric
pressure at sea level on Earth is measured to be 101,150 pascals. Find the absolute error in the
measurement using an accepted value of 101,325 pascals.
Okay, so in this experiment,
there’s a measurement made of atmospheric pressure at sea level. We can refer to this measured value
using a capital 𝑀, and we know it’s 101,150 pascals. We want to compare our measured
value to an accepted value of atmospheric pressure at sea level given here. And specifically, we want to
calculate the absolute error in this measurement compared to our accepted value that
we’ll represent using a capital 𝐴. To do this, we can recall that the
absolute error of a measured value is equal to the absolute value of the measured
value subtracted from the accepted value.
Basically, we’ll take our measured
value, capital 𝑀, and we’ll subtract it from our accepted value for atmospheric
pressure at sea level. And we’ve called that value capital
𝐴. And then, lastly, we’ll take the
absolute value of this difference. We can now substitute in the values
for 𝐴 and 𝑀. And when we do and then calculate
this difference, we find it’s equal to 175 pascals. That’s the magnitude of the
difference between our measured and accepted values. And, therefore, it’s our absolute
error.
