ABSTRACT

Uncertainty, also known as error, is how scientists communicate their expectations about how closely their experimental result will match the results from past or future experiments, or match a theoretical prediction. Uncertainty is an essential part of every scientific prediction or measurement – it defines what we mean by “agreement,” making it possible for they experiments to confirm or disconfirm hypotheses. The scatter due to imprecision does not reflect any systematic errors, the type of errors in procedure or equipment that make repeated measurements consistently high or low. Systematic errors cause a lack of accuracy in students measurement – no matter how many repeated measurements they take, systematic errors will cause them all to differ from the true value. Some of the systematic errors can be identified after the fact and their effects can be corrected or partially remediated, but others must be measured at the time of the experiment by calibrating their measuring apparatus against a stable reference standard.