Error Analysis

Introduction
The knowledge we have of the physical world is obtained by doing
experiments and making measurements. It is important to understand how to
express such data and how to analyze and draw meaningful conclusions
from it.
In doing this it is crucial to understand that all measurements of physical
quantities are subject to uncertainties. It is never possible to measure
anything exactly. It is good, of course, to make the error as small as possible
but it is always there. And in order to draw valid conclusions the error must
be indicated and dealt with properly.
Take the measurement of a person's height as an example. Assuming that her
height has been determined to be 5' 8", how accurate is our result?
Well, the height of a person depends on how straight she stands, whether she
just got up (most people are slightly taller when getting up from a long rest
in horizontal position), whether she has her shoes on, and how long her hair
is and how it is made up. These inaccuracies could all be called errors of
definition. A quantity such as height is not exactly defined without
specifying many other circumstances.
Even if you could precisely specify the "circumstances," your result would
still have an error associated with it. The scale you are using is of limited
accuracy; when you read the scale, you may have to estimate a fraction
between the marks on the scale, etc.
If the result of a measurement is to have meaning it cannot consist of the
measured value alone. An indication of how accurate the result is must be
included also. Indeed, typically more effort is required to determine
the error or uncertainty in a measurement than to perform the
measurement itself. Thus, the result of any physical measurement has
two essential components: (1) A numerical value (in a specified system of
units) giving the best estimate possible of the quantity measured, and (2)
the degree of uncertainty associated with this estimated value. For
example, a measurement of the width of a table would yield a result such as
95.3 +/- 0.1 cm.

Significant Figures
The significant figures of a (measured or calculated) quantity are
the meaningful digits in it. There are conventions which you should learn
and follow for how to express numbers so as to properly indicate their
significant figures.

Any digit that is not zero is significant. Thus 549 has three significant
figures and 1.892 has four significant figures.
Zeros between non zero digits are significant. Thus 4023 has four
significant figures.
Zeros to the left of the first non zero digit are not significant. Thus
0.000034 has only two significant figures. This is more easily seen if
it is written as 3.4x10-5.
For numbers with decimal points, zeros to the right of a non zero digit
are significant. Thus 2.00 has three significant figures and 0.050 has
two significant figures. For this reason it is important to keep the
trailing zeros to indicate the actual number of significant figures.
For numbers without decimal points, trailing zeros may or may not be
significant. Thus, 400 indicates only one significant figure. To
indicate that the trailing zeros are significant a decimal point must be
added. For example, 400. has three significant figures, and
has
one significant figure.
Exact numbers have an infinite number of significant digits. For
example, if there are two oranges on a table, then the number of
oranges is 2.000... . Defined numbers are also like this. For example,
the number of centimeters per inch (2.54) has an infinite number of
significant digits, as does the speed of light (299792458 m/s).

There are also specific rules for how to consistently express the uncertainty
associated with a number. In general, the last significant figure in any result
should be of the same order of magnitude (i.e.. in the same decimal position)
as the uncertainty. Also, the uncertainty should be rounded to one or two
significant figures. Always work out the uncertainty after finding the
number of significant figures for the actual measurement.
For example,
9.82 +/- 0.02
10.0 +/- 1.5
4 +/- 1
The following numbers are all incorrect.

9.82 +/- 0.02385 is wrong but 9.82 +/- 0.02 is fine

10.0 +/- 2 is wrong but 10.0 +/- 2.0 is fine
4 +/- 0.5 is wrong but 4.0 +/- 0.5 is fine
In practice, when doing mathematical calculations, it is a good idea to keep
one more digit than is significant to reduce rounding errors. But in the end,
the answer must be expressed with only the proper number of significant
figures. After addition or subtraction, the result is significant only to
the place determined by the largest last significant place in the original
numbers. For example,
89.332 + 1.1 = 90.432
should be rounded to get 90.4 (the tenths place is the last significant place in
1.1). After multiplication or division, the number of significant figures in
the result is determined by the original number with the smallest number of
significant figures. For example,
(2.80) (4.5039) = 12.61092
should be rounded off to 12.6 (three significant figures like 2.80).
Refer to any good introductory chemistry textbook for an explanation of the
methodology for working out significant figures.

The Idea of Error

The concept of error needs to be well understood. What is and what is not
meant by "error"?
A measurement may be made of a quantity which has an accepted value
which can be looked up in a handbook (e.g.. the density of brass). The
difference between the measurement and the accepted value is not what is
meant by error. Such accepted values are not "right" answers. They are just
measurements made by other people which have errors associated with them
as well.
Nor does error mean "blunder." Reading a scale backwards,
misunderstanding what you are doing or elbowing your lab partner's
measuring apparatus are blunders which can be caught and should simply be
disregarded.

Obviously, it cannot be determined exactly how far off a measurement is; if

this could be done, it would be possible to just give a more accurate,
corrected value.
Error, then, has to do with uncertainty in measurements that nothing can be
done about. If a measurement is repeated, the values obtained will differ and
none of the results can be preferred over the others. Although it is not
possible to do anything about such error, it can be characterized. For
instance, the repeated measurements may cluster tightly together or they
may spread widely. This pattern can be analyzed systematically.

Classification of Error
Generally, errors can be divided into two broad and rough but useful classes:
systematic and random.
Systematic errors are errors which tend to shift all measurements in a
systematic way so their mean value is displaced. This may be due to such
things as incorrect calibration of equipment, consistently improper use of
equipment or failure to properly account for some effect. In a sense, a
systematic error is rather like a blunder and large systematic errors can and
must be eliminated in a good experiment. But small systematic errors will
always be present. For instance, no instrument can ever be calibrated
perfectly.
Other sources of systematic errors are external effects which can change the
results of the experiment, but for which the corrections are not well known.
In science, the reasons why several independent confirmations of
experimental results are often required (especially using different
techniques) is because different apparatus at different places may be affected
by different systematic effects. Aside from making mistakes (such as
thinking one is using the x10 scale, and actually using the x100 scale), the
reason why experiments sometimes yield results which may be far outside
the quoted errors is because of systematic effects which were not accounted
for.
Random errors are errors which fluctuate from one measurement to the next.
They yield results distributed about some mean value. They can occur for a
variety of reasons.

They may occur due to lack of sensitivity. For a sufficiently a small

change an instrument may not be able to respond to it or to indicate it
or the observer may not be able to discern it.

They may occur due to noise. There may be extraneous disturbances

which cannot be taken into account.
They may be due to imprecise definition.
They may also occur due to statistical processes such as the roll of
dice.

Random errors displace measurements in an arbitrary direction whereas

systematic errors displace measurements in a single direction. Some
systematic error can be substantially eliminated (or properly taken into
account). Random errors are unavoidable and must be lived with.
Many times you will find results quoted with two errors. The first error
quoted is usually the random error, and the second is called the systematic
error. If only one error is quoted, then the errors from all sources are added
together. (In quadrature as described in the section on propagation of errors.)
A good example of "random error" is the statistical error associated with
sampling or counting. For example, consider radioactive decay which occurs
randomly at a some (average) rate. If a sample has, on average, 1000
radioactive decays per second then the expected number of decays in 5
seconds would be 5000. A particular measurement in a 5 second interval
will, of course, vary from this average but it will generally yield a
value within 5000 +/- . Behavior like this, where the error,
, (1)
is called a Poisson statistical process. Typically if one does not know
is assumed that,

it

,
in order to estimate this error.
A. Mean Value
Suppose an experiment were repeated many, say N, times to get,
,
N measurements of the same quantity, x. If the errors were random then the
errors in these results would differ in sign and magnitude. So if the average
or meanvalue of our measurements were calculated,

, (2)

some of the random variations could be expected to cancel out with others in
the sum. This is the best that can be done to deal with random errors: repeat
the measurement many times, varying as many "irrelevant" parameters as
possible and use the average as the best estimate of the true value of x. (It
should be pointed out that this estimate for a given N will differ from the
limit as
the true mean value; though, of course, for larger N it will be
closer to the limit.) In the case of the previous example: measure the height
at different times of day, using different scales, different helpers to read the
scale, etc.
Doing this should give a result with less error than any of the individual
measurements. But it is obviously expensive, time consuming and tedious.
So, eventually one must compromise and decide that the job is done.
Nevertheless, repeating the experiment is the only way to gain confidence in
and knowledge of its accuracy. In the process an estimate of the deviation of
the measurements from the mean value can be obtained.
B. Measuring Error
There are several different ways the distribution of the measured values of a
repeated experiment such as discussed above can be specified.

Maximum Error

The maximum and minimum values of the data set,

be specified. In these terms, the quantity,

and

, could

, (3)
is the maximum error. And virtually no measurements should ever fall
outside
.

Probable Error

The probable error,

, specifies the range
50% of the measured values.

which contains

Average Deviation

The average deviation is the average of the deviations from the mean,
. (4)

For a Gaussian distribution of the data, about 58% will lie

within
.

Standard Deviation

For the data to have a Gaussian distribution means that the probability
of obtaining the result x is,
, (5)
where is most probable value and , which is called the standard
deviation, determines the width of the distribution. Because of the
law of large numbers this assumption will tend to be valid for random
errors. And so it is common practice to quote error in terms of the
standard deviation of a Gaussian distribution fit to the observed data
distribution. This is the way you should quote error in your reports.
It is just as wrong to indicate an error which is too large as one which is too
small. In the measurement of the height of a person, we would reasonably
expect the error to be +/-1/4" if a careful job was done, and maybe +/-3/4" if
we did a hurried sample measurement. Certainly saying that a person's
height is 5' 8.250"+/-0.002" is ridiculous (a single jump will compress your
spine more than this) but saying that a person's height is 5' 8"+/- 6" implies
that we have, at best, made a very rough estimate!
C. Standard Deviation
The mean is the most probable value of a Gaussian distribution. In terms of
the mean, the standard deviation of any distribution is,

. (6)
The quantity , the square of the standard deviation, is called the variance.
The best estimate of the true standard deviation is,

. (7)
The reason why we divide by N to get the best estimate of the mean and
only by N-1 for the best estimate of the standard deviation needs to be
explained. The true mean value of x is not being used to calculate the
variance, but only the average of the measurements as the best estimate of it.
Thus,
as calculated is always a little bit smaller than
, the

quantity really wanted. In the theory of probability (that is, using the
assumption that the data has a Gaussian distribution), it can be shown that
this underestimate is corrected by using N-1 instead of N.
If one made one more measurement of x then (this is also a property of a
Gaussian distribution) it would have some 68% probability of lying
within
. Note that this means that about 30% of all experiments will
disagree with the accepted value by more than one standard deviation!
However, we are also interested in the error of the mean, which is smaller
than sx if there were several measurements. An exact calculation yields,

, (8)
for the standard error of the mean. This means that, for example, if there
were 20 measurements, the error on the mean itself would be = 4.47 times
smaller then the error of each measurement. The number to report for this
series of N measurements of x is
where
. The meaning of this is
that if the Nmeasurements of x were repeated there would be a 68%
probability the new mean value of would lie within
(that is
between
and
). Note that this also means that there is a 32%
probability that it will fall outside of this range. This means that out of 100
experiments of this type, on the average, 32 experiments will obtain a value
which is outside the standard errors.
For a Gaussian distribution there is a 5% probability that the true value is
outside of the range
, i.e. twice the standard error, and only a 0.3%
chance that it is outside the range of
.

Examples
Suppose the number of cosmic ray particles passing through some detecting
device every hour is measured nine times and the results are those in the
following table.
Thus we have = 900/9 = 100 and
= 1500/8 = 188 or = 14. Then the
probability that one more measurement of x will lie within 100 +/- 14 is
68%.
The value to be reported for this series of measurements is 100+/-(14/3) or
100 +/- 5. If one were to make another series of nine measurements

of x there would be a 68% probability the new mean would lie within the
range 100 +/- 5.
Random counting processes like this example obey a Poisson distribution
for which
. So one would expect the value of to be 10. This is
somewhat less than the value of 14 obtained above; indicating either the
process is not quite random or, what is more likely, more measurements are
needed.
i
-----------------------------------------1
80
400
2
95
25
3
100
0
4
110
100
5
90
100
6
115
225
7
85
225
8
120
400
9
105
25
S
900
1500
------------------------------------------

The same error analysis can be used for any set of repeated measurements
whether they arise from random processes or not. For example in the
Atwood's machine experiment to measure g you are asked to measure time
five times for a given distance of fall s. The mean value of the time is,
, (9)
and the standard error of the mean is,
, (10)
where n = 5.
For the distance measurement you will have to estimate [[Delta]]s, the
precision with which you can measure the drop distance (probably of the
order of 2-3 mm).

Propagation of Errors
Frequently, the result of an experiment will not be measured directly. Rather,
it will be calculated from several measured physical quantities (each of

which has a mean value and an error). What is the resulting error in the final
result of such an experiment?
For instance, what is the error in Z = A + B where A and B are two
measured quantities with errors
and
respectively?
A first thought might be that the error in Z would be just the sum of the
errors in A and B. After all,
(11)
and
. (12)
But this assumes that, when combined, the errors in A and B have the same
sign and maximum magnitude; that is that they always combine in the worst
possible way. This could only happen if the errors in the two variables were
perfectly correlated, (i.e.. if the two variables were not really independent).
If the variables are independent then sometimes the error in one variable will
happen to cancel out some of the error in the other and so, on the average,
the error in Zwill be less than the sum of the errors in its parts. A reasonable
way to try to take this into account is to treat the perturbations in Z produced
by perturbations in its parts as if they were "perpendicular" and added
according to the Pythagorean theorem,
. (13)
That is, if A = (100 +/- 3) and B = (6 +/- 4) then Z = (106 +/- 5)
since
.
This idea can be used to derive a general rule. Suppose there are two
measurements, A and B, and the final result is Z = F(A, B) for some
function F. If A is perturbed by
then Z will be perturbed by

where (the partial derivative) [[partialdiff]]F/[[partialdiff]]A is the derivative

of F with respect to A with B held constant. Similarly the perturbation
in Z due to a perturbation in B is,
.

Combining these by the Pythagorean theorem yields

, (14)
In the example of Z = A + B considered above,
,
so this gives the same result as before. Similarly if Z = A - B then,
,
which also gives the same result. Errors combine in the same way for both
addition and subtraction. However, if Z = AB then,
,
so
, (15)
Thus
, (16)
or the fractional error in Z is the square root of the sum of the squares of the
fractional errors in its parts. (You should be able to verify that the result is
the same for division as it is for multiplication.) For example,
.
It should be noted that since the above applies only when the two measured
quantities are independent of each other it does not apply when, for
example, one physical quantity is measured and what is required is its
square. If Z = A2 then the perturbation in Z due to a perturbation in A is,
. (17)
Thus, in this case,

(18)
and not A2 (1 +//A) as would be obtained by misapplying the rule for
independent variables. For example,
(10 +/- 1)2 = 100 +/- 20 and not 100 +/- 14.
If a variable Z depends on (one or) two variables (A and B) which
have independent errors (
and ) then the rule for calculating the error
in Z is tabulated in following table for a variety of simple relationships.
These rules may be compounded for more complicated situations.
Relation between Z
Relation between errors
and(A,B)
and ( ,
)
---------------------------------------------------------------1
Z = A + B
2
Z = A - B
3

Z = AB

Z = A/B

Z = An

Z =

ln A

7
Z = eA
----------------------------------------------------------------

References
1. Taylor, John R. An Introduction to Error Analysis: The Study of
Uncertainties if Physical Measurements. University Science Books, 1982.
2. P.V. Bork, H. Grote, D. Notz, M. Regler. Data Analysis Techniques in
High Energy Physics Expe