Percent Error:

When scientists want to compare their results of a given measurement to the known or accepted value, the absolute difference between the two is virtually meaningless. For example, if one calculated a difference of 5 meters in a distance measurement, is that a large amount or very small. Well, it all depends on what you are measuring. If you were measuring the distance to the Moon, then being off by 5 meters is not too bad, but if you were measuring the diameter of a baseball, then being off by 5 meters makes a huge difference. A more useful way to measure your accuracy is to find the percent error between the two values. Finding the percent error is simple.

One only uses percent error when comparing an experimental value to a known or accepted value. For example, gravity g, the speed of light c, the mass of an electron, the mean radius of the Earth, etcetera. If one wants to compare two experimental values, then one must use a different formula known as the percent difference.

Examples of Calculating %Error:

1. Experimental value of gravity is found to be 10.07 m/s2 . Accepted value of g is 9.81m/s2

2. Odometer estimation of the distance from Raleigh to Wilmington is found to be 132.8 miles. Accepted straight line distance between the two is 119 miles.

Percent Difference:
As stated above, one uses percent difference when comparing two calculated or experimental values to each other. Typically one is interested in the percent difference of two values pertaining to the same property or characteristic of an object or system (mass, velocity, charge, etc). Typically, both values are calculated using different methods, theories, or devices. Just as with percent error, calculating percent difference is quite easy.

Where

correspond to the experiment values of interest. Since the above equation is .

completely symmetric it does not matter which value you set as

Examples of Calculating % Difference:

1. Diameter of a cylinder is found to be 5.50 cm using a meter stick. The same diameter is found to be 5.75cm using a caliper.

2. Calculating the average acceleration of an object in free fall by means of kinematics equations yields an average acceleration of 9.64m/s2 . Plotting a graph of Velocity vs. Time gives a slope value of 9.32m/s 2 for the average acceleration.