Re: Significant figures - a Modest Proposal

[Robert A Cohen <bbq@ESU.EDU>]

On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Glenn Knapp wrote:

> Do any of you do the old drop the ruler between the poised fingers demo to
> determine reaction time?

Since precision is more due to the *variation* in reaction time, I have my
students use a hand-held timer to "time" the second hand on the wall
clock.  Most students get a distribution of the measured time of about 0.1
seconds.

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| Robert Cohen               Department of Physics       |
|                            East Stroudsburg University |
| bbq@esu.edu                East Stroudsburg, PA  18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/   (570) 422-3428              |
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