phy 121
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 **
After 10 clicks, I see a list numbered 1-10. next to each number, there are two columns of decimals.
** Your TIMER data from 20 fast clicks **
1 168.4844 168.4844
2 168.6563 .171875
3 168.9375 .28125
4 169.1094 .171875
5 169.4219 .3125
6 169.5938 .171875
7 169.7656 .171875
8 169.8906 .125
9 170.0625 .171875
10 170.2305 .1679688
11 170.3711 .140625
12 170.543 .171875
13 170.7148 .171875
14 170.8867 .171875
15 171.0742 .1875
16 171.2148 .140625
17 171.4023 .1875
18 171.5742 .171875
19 171.7305 .15625
20 171.918 .1875
21 172.2305 .3125
22 172.4336 .203125
23 172.6367 .203125
** Your average time interval for 20 time intervals **
My average was .188740909. To get the average, I subtracted the first number in column 1 from the last number in column 1, giving me the total elapsed time. Then I divided by the number of intervals, in this case, 22.
** Your frequency distribution for the 20 time intervals (interval, number of times it was observed) **
.125, 1
.140625, 2
.15625, 1
.1679688, 1
.171875, 9
.1875, 3
.203125, 2
.28125, 1
.3125, 2
** Your general comment to this point **
** Why did you observe only certain time intervals? **
This timer seems to be accurate to multiples of 1/8...It does not mean it is useless, but it cannot give more accuracy than that.
** What did you see when you looked at the differences between time successive time intervals? **
Each of these numbers seems to be either .015625 (or a rounded version of that number) or .03125, which is twice .015625. This must be the smallest increment the timer uses.
** Your time intervals for 7 complete breaths: **
4.914063
5.894531
6.835938
7.90625
7.925781
8.285156
8.53125
9.125
9.375
9.707031
** Your general comment to this point: **
** Why did you rarely, if ever, observe that same time interval twice? **
When doing something as quickly as possible, if that activity approaches the accuracy of the timer, there is a greater chance of duplicating the same value. When the events being timed take longer, the odds of duplication decrease.
** Do you think this program is accurate to .1 or .01 ... **
I believe the accuracy of the timer is within about .01 second, because this is the smallest difference I was able to see.
** Copy of a few lines of your spreadsheet from the TIMER program. **
'series of regular breaths time at beginning of inhalation
event number clock time time interval
1 3.632813 3.632813
2 9.527344 5.894531
3 16.36328 6.835938
4 25.48828 9.125
5 34.86328 9.375
** **
It took about 25 minutes to complete this exercise.
** **
&#This looks very good. Let me know if you have any questions. &#