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Re: [Phys-L] teaching error analysis in high school

I don't have the website handy, but if you Google carleton college and peter bohacek, you might find some very nice materials peter created for hs physics and error analysis.

Paul Lulai
St Anthony Village Senior High

----- Reply message -----
From: "John Denker" <jsd@av8n.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 1:15 pm
Subject: [Phys-L] teaching error analysis in high school
To: "Phys-L@Phys-L.org" <Phys-L@Phys-L.org>

On 09/30/2012 07:33 AM, Jeff Bigler wrote:
In order to help illustrate
the problem with sig figs, I showed them one of John Denker's graphs as
a way of explaining the limitation. The graph was a Gaussian
distribution of 3.8675309 ± 0.1 using all of the digits vs. rounding
to tenths vs. rounding to hundredths. (I looked for it on av8n.com, but
it looks like John has since edited the page it appeared on, and the
graph is no longer there.) One of my students looked at the number and
blurted out, "Oh my God! Jenny!"

Actually, that figure was never heretofore part of the web page
http://www.av8n.com/physics/uncertainty.htm
Rather, it was something I prepared for an email discussion last March.

However, since you found it valuable, just now I wrote a new subsection
that incorporates and discusses is:
http://www.av8n.com/physics/uncertainty.htm#sec-effect-of-roundoff

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