Suppose that, in an attempt to minimize waste, a laboratory teaching assistant d

Question

Suppose that, in an attempt to minimize waste, a laboratory teaching assistant decided to give each student only 1mL of each liquid for use to measure density in this experiment, 1) Estimate the magnitude of the absoulte error and percent error in the measured sample volumes. Compare those errors to the errors that occur when measuring volumes of approximately 8mL, as is normally done in this experiment. Assume that the graduated cylinder used to measure all of the volumes has 0.1-mL graduations, 2) Based on your answer to (1), would you be more or less confident about your density measurement if you used the smaller sample volume, rather than the normal 8-mL sample? Breifly explain

Explanation / Answer

1) You're save assuming (0.1 / 2) mL error with 0.1 mL graduations, but really your eye is better than that and a better number might be 0.02 or 0.03 mL . Still, this is homework land, not a chemistry lab, so +/-0.05 mL absolute error, 0.05 mL / 1 mL = 5% relative error in a 1 mL sample. With an 8 mL sample, absolute error is the same but relative error is 1/8 as large (because the sample is 8 times bigger).

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