Your 'timer program' report has been received. Scroll down through the document to see any comments I might have inserted, and my final comment at the end.
Your General Comment
Describe what you see on your first 10 clicks
the timer counts the time difference between clicks.
Your TIMER data from 20 fast clicks
1 862.5 862.5
2 864.9219 2.421875
3 865.0625 .140625
4 865.2188 .15625
5 865.375 .15625
6 865.5469 .171875
7 865.6875 .140625
8 865.9375 .25
9 866.2344 .296875
10 866.3438 .109375
11 866.4375 .09375
12 866.5469 .109375
13 866.6406 .09375
14 866.7344 .09375
15 866.8281 .09375
16 866.9063 .078125
17 867 .09375
18 867.0938 .09375
19 867.1563 .0625
20 867.2656 .109375
Your average time interval for 20 time intervals
0.23828
the average was found by taking the initial time, and then subtracting that from the final time. this gives a number of 4.7656, which if
divided by 20 gives an answer of 0.23828.
Your frequency distribution for the 20 time intervals (interval, number of times it was observed)
.0625,1
.078125,1
.09375,6
.109375,3
.140625, 2
.15625, 2
.171875,1
.25, 1
.296875,1
2.421875, 1
Your general comment to this point
Why did you observe only certain time intervals?
the fact that the timer program managed to report so many intervals of the same time merly reflects that limitations of the program. The program itself is no more flawed than is a clock, but it does have limits as to how precisly it can measure intervals. because if this, it is n ot uselss, rather this means that it is usable in given situations, but is not infinatly accurate.
What did you see when you looked at the differences between time successive time intervals?
the new column tells us the measureing capacity of the timer, in this case, it measures in increments of .015625 seconds.
Your time intervals for 7 complete breaths:
10618.16
2.78125
3.796875
4.4375
5.21875
4.828125
4.765625
4.890625
5.5
4.6875
Your general comment to this point:
Why did you rarely, if ever, observe that same time interval twice?
this is because of the timer' limitations. when we use the timerto measure intervals very close to the limits of the timer, it is nt going to return as accurate a result as if we were to use it at a point well removed from the minimum limit of the timer.
Do you think this program is accurate to .1 or .01 ...
b, becasue the differnce between the smallest of the intervals
Copy of a few lines of your spreadsheet from the TIMER program.
event number clock time time interval
1 10618.16 10618.16
2 10620.94 2.78125
3 10624.73 3.796875
4 10629.17 4.4375
5 10634.39 5.21875
I Think it took about 20 minutes to complete
unourtunatly, I was interupted many times during the experiment, so my estimated time is not vera accurate.
Good work. However note that you didn't really achieve the requested number of consecutive fast clicks. Anything over .2 seconds was probably associated with a 'hitch' or a missed click, and the 2.4-second interval definitely didn't belong in there. No problem here, but the next time an experiment calls for a number of fast clicks, make sure you keep trying until you get them. It will make a difference in your analysis next time.