The purpose of this laboratory experiment is to learn through basic measurement calculations of the data we collected and related our calculations to the accuracy and the precision of the data. This laboratory serves as the foundation for the analytical calculations and procedures that will prove useful in our approaching experiments. Some of these methods include error propagation, error analysis, analysis related to uncertainty and how these methods of analysis aid in indicating accuracy and precision. It is important to note that at every part of the experiment, multiple measurements were taking to decrease the standard deviation, improve accuracy and lastly improve precision. The literature values are given to relating our statistical analysis to the accuracy. Additionally, the use of excel as a linear regression tool was employed to help us determine the error associated with our mass, volume, density using the method of least squares. It was also used to graph the quantity mass vs. volume and help us obtain a line of best fit and a linear equation which will be used in our data analysis. .
EXPERIMENTAL .
We followed the experimental procedure outlined by the OU Physical Chemistry Laboratory Manual without deviation.1.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION.
Density of Rubber Stoppers.
Part A of the experiment begins with measuring the mass, volume and density of the common stopper. As stated earlier we collect multiple sets of data for each quantity in order to use these values to conduct a thorough data analysis. The mass of the common stopper that we obtained was 104.6758 +/- .0017 g. After the mass was obtained we obtained the slant height, which was 2.60 +/- .02 cm this value is used to calculate the common stopper height later in our data analysis. The next two quantities we obtained values for were the small diameter and large diameter which were 5.64 +/- .05 cm and 6.55 +/- .05 cm respectively. We then used these values to calculate the common stopper height using the equation given on page 3 of our calculation or the first equation on page 22 of the lab manual.