Wednesday, May 18, 2016

experimental physics - Multiple measurements of the same quantity - combining uncertainties



I have a number of measurements of the same quantity (in this case, the speed of sound in a material). Each of these measurements has their own uncertainty.


v1±Δv1

v2±Δv2
v3±Δv3
vN±ΔvN


Since they're measurements of the same quantity, all the values of v are roughly equal. I can, of course, calculate the mean:


v=Ni=1viN


What would the uncertainty in v be? In the limit that all the Δvi are small, then Δv should be the standard deviation of the vi. If the Δvi are large, then Δv should be something like iΔv2iN, right?


So what is the formula for combining these uncertainties? I don't think it's the one given in this answer (though I may be wrong) because it doesn't look like it behaves like I'd expect in the above limits (specifically, if the Δvi are zero then that formula gives Δv=0, not the standard deviation of the vi).




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