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| a measure of how close a measured value is to the "true" value |
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| error due to procedural or instrumental factors that cause a measurement to be consistently too large or too small. the error can, in principle, be discovered and corrected (also called systematic error) |
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| a type of error, which can be either positive or negative and cannot be eliminated, based on the ultimate limitations on a physical measurement (also called random error) |
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| a measure of the reproducibility of a measurement |
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| a measure of the precision of a measurement |
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| the number of significant digits in a quantity is the minimum number of digits needed to express the quantity in scientific notation. in experimental data, the first uncertain figure is the last significant figure. |
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| in statistics, the number of independent observations upon which a result is based |
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| the range of values within which there is a specified probability that the true value will be found |
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| theoretical bell-shaped distribution of measurements when all error is random. the center of the curve is the mean and the width is characterized by the standard deviation. a normalized curve is also called the "normal curve" |
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| the average of a set of all results |
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| for a set of data, that value above and below which there are equal numbers of data |
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| the difference between the highest and lowest values in a set of data; also called "spread." with respect to an analytical method, it is the concentration interval over which the linearity, accuracy, and precision are all acceptable. |
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| a statistic measuring how closely data are clustered about the mean value. |
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| pooled standard deviation |
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| statistical test used to decide whether to discard a datum that appears discrepant |
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| statistical test used to decide whether the results of two experiments are within experimental uncertainty of each other. the uncertainty must be specified to within a certain probability. |
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| a statistical tool used to express confidence intervals to compare results from different experiments |
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| the square of standard deivation |
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