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Which one of the following statements is true?Group of answer choicesOnly the quantities we measure directly have uncertainties; once we perform calculations with these quantities our answer is exact.If a height is recorded as h = (12 ± 3) mm, then it is absolutely certain that the height is between 9 mm and 15 mm.When we repeat a measurement many times and take the average value of these measurements, the uncertainty on this average (i.e. the SEM) is generally expected to be smaller than the uncertainty on the individual measurements.We only have uncertainties in first year lab because our equipment is not precise enough; in research labs there is no uncertainty.

Question

Which one of the following statements is true?Group of answer choicesOnly the quantities we measure directly have uncertainties; once we perform calculations with these quantities our answer is exact.If a height is recorded as h = (12 ± 3) mm, then it is absolutely certain that the height is between 9 mm and 15 mm.When we repeat a measurement many times and take the average value of these measurements, the uncertainty on this average (i.e. the SEM) is generally expected to be smaller than the uncertainty on the individual measurements.We only have uncertainties in first year lab because our equipment is not precise enough; in research labs there is no uncertainty.

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Solution

The true statement is: "When we repeat a measurement many times and take the average value of these measurements, the uncertainty on this average (i.e. the SEM) is generally expected to be smaller than the uncertainty on the individual measurements."

This is because the standard error of the mean (SEM) decreases as the sample size increases, assuming the standard deviation remains the same. This is a fundamental concept in statistics. The other statements are incorrect. Uncertainties exist in all measurements, not just those we measure directly, and they exist in all labs, not just first year labs. Also, just because a height is recorded as h = (12 ± 3) mm, it does not mean it is absolutely certain that the height is between 9 mm and 15 mm. The ± value represents a range in which the true value is likely to lie, but it's not a guarantee.

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Let us first define the standard deviation s. Suppose weperform N measurements 1, 2, · · · , N with the average¯. Then the deviation of each measurement is given byδ =  − ¯ with  = 1, 2, · · · , N. The standard deviation s iss =√√√ ∑N=1(δ)2N − 1When we report the average value of N measurements,the uncertainty we should associate with this averagevalue is the standard error.σ = spN =√√√√∑N=1(δ)2N(N − 1)The standard error is smaller than the standard deviationby a factor of 1/pN, since the statistical uncertainty canbe reduced by large number of measurements. Also it isuseful to write σ2 = δ2 ≡ 1N(N − 1)N∑=1δ2 .Suppose we want to determine a quantity  = ƒ (, ),which depends on  and . We want to know the error in = ƒ (, ) if we measure  and  with errors σ and σ .Using the Taylor expansion, we can obtain the law of theerror propagation as follows(δ)2 = ∂ƒ∂2(δ)2 + ∂ƒ∂2(δ)2 + 2 ∂ƒ∂∂ƒ∂(δδ)If the measurements of  and  are uncorrelated, then,on the average, we should expect to find equal distribu-tions of positive and negative values for this term, and weshould expect (δδ) = 0. At the end of the day, using thedefinition of the standard error σ, we can obtainσ =√√√ ∂ƒ∂2σ2 + ∂ƒ∂2σ2Exercise problems: Now find the standard error σ in = ƒ (, ) as a function of the errors in σ and σ for thefollowing functions:(a)  =  +  (0.5 pts)You can find the absolute uncertainty of the sum(or difference) is the root square sum of theindividual absolute uncertainties when adding (orsubtracting).(b)  =  ×  (0.5 pts)(c)  = /  (1 pt)You can find that the relative uncertainty of the prod-uct (quotient) is the root square sum of the individualrelative uncertainties.(d)  = 2 (1 pt)(e)  =  exp(c) with c constant. (0.5 pts)(f)  = 1/ 

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