Lesson Plan: Combining Uncertainties Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to find the uncertainties in the values of quantities that can be calculated from two or more measured values.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- recall that when two quantities, and , are added together or subtracted from one another, the uncertainty of the result is equal to the sum of the uncertainties of and (if , ),
- recall that when two quantities, and , are multiplied or divided, the percent uncertainty of the result is equal to the sum of the percent uncertainties of and (if , ),
- recall that when a quantity, , is raised to a power, the percent uncertainty of the result is the percent uncertainty of multiplied by the power (if , then ).
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what an uncertainty is,
- the idea that all measured values have uncertainties,
- percentage uncertainties.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- full uncertainty propagation,
- addition in quadrature,
- functional uncertainty propagation,
- standard deviations or variances.