Intro to Physics 101.1/Measurements and Uncertainties
As a Physics Major, I was going to have to get used to having lab classes. Within the field, or any field of science in fact, the most available way to produce results and findings is to conduct experiments. Thus, these lab classes become necessary not only in developing our skills as physics students, but also as scientists as a whole.
Our lab professor told us students that the reason that Physics 101.1 and all other Physics lab classes are separated from their corresponding lecture classes is that there is a need to hone the experimental skills needed in physics along with the conceptual knowledge we gain. In Physics 101.1 specifically, there is a need for us to have the basic skill set we need in conducting physics experiments if we were to properly develop in this field. There is a need for us to master the basics such as measurement and simple experimentation before we move on to the more complex topics that physics as a whole has to offer
In today's class, we discussed measurements and uncertainties. In physics experimentation, there are a lot of measurements that we have to take. Measurement is the fundamental tool for gathering data so undoubtedly a lot of it is necessary as we test different hypotheses. And as we gather data, we have to be aware that we are limited, both in ourselves as researchers and in the instruments that we use – that is what we'd call uncertainty.
Aside from this, we also learned about precision and accuracy. Measurements may be precise when they are close to each other. Measurements are accurate when they are near the value that is commonly known. In taking measurements, they can be accurate but not precise, precise but not accurate, both accurate and precise, or even neither of the two.
In our lab, we learned how to account for uncertainty in measurements as we measured grains of rice. We used the vernier caliper for our measurements. It was difficult at first to get the rice exactly horizontal, but in the end, we were able to get it and make 60 measurements of different samples of rice grains.
