PHYS 34320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Gaussian Function, Approximation Error, Full Width At Half Maximum
Document Summary
Purpose: students will learn some of the basics of scientific error analysis. Scientists aim for measurements that are good enough to draw a conclusion from the data, and then proceed to explain exactly what good enough means for this study or that experiment. Simply reporting the result of a measurement isn"t good enough. A scientific result is useless unless we know how approximate and how precise it is. Scientific results are not complete unless they are accompanied by an error analysis. Research scientists often spend most of their time on the error analysis. It is an absolutely necessary part of the process of doing science. Unfortunately, many students start with the idea that experimental error is about mistakes that mess up an experiment. The actual purpose of error analysis is to determine how much measurement uncertainty, or wiggle room, there is in the result. In this course, we will use the terms experimental error and measurement uncertainty interchangeably.
