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 **
I see a data list. The numbers in the left column gradualy increase with the time it took me to click on them. The data points the right are representing the amount of time between each click.
** Your TIMER data from 20 fast clicks **
1 638.5547 638.5547
2 638.7422 .1875
3 638.9297 .1875
4 639.1016 .171875
5 639.3047 .203125
6 639.4766 .171875
7 639.6484 .171875
8 639.8203 .171875
9 639.9922 .171875
10 640.1484 .15625
11 640.3203 .171875
12 640.4766 .15625
13 640.6563 .1796875
14 640.8125 .15625
15 640.9688 .15625
16 641.125 .15625
17 641.2813 .15625
18 641.4375 .15625
19 641.6094 .171875
20 641.75 .140625
21 641.9063 .15625
** Your average time interval for 20 time intervals **
.167578
I took 20 intervals and added them up and divided by 20. Every number that was the same though, i just times that number by how many occurences happened. For example, .1875 x 2
** Your frequency distribution for the 20 time intervals (interval, number of times it was observed) **
.140625,1
.15625,8
.171875,7
.1796875,1
.1875,2
.203125,1
** Your general comment to this point **
** Why did you observe only certain time intervals? **
It's really not a question of the timer program being flawed, it's all in how the program was written and how it is suppose to work. Does it have a certain rounding protocol? It's far from being useless, but you are going to see a majority of the same data points. The timer probably works just the ways the programmer wrote it to work.
Good comments. The 8-bit processor apparently works in multiples of 1/256 second, which isn't surprising.
** What did you see when you looked at the differences between time successive time intervals? **
The time interval's don't correspond to the results shown. This is telling us that the timer program does indeed have a rounding protocol that it does when the mouse is clicked and registered.
The differences in the time intervals turn out to be multiples of 1/64 second.
** Your time intervals for 7 complete breaths: **
1.96875
2.75
3.929688
2.867188
3.710938
3.546875
3.179688
** Your general comment to this point: **
** Why did you rarely, if ever, observe that same time interval twice? **
A relaxed breath is not as spontaneous as click this mouse 20 times as fast as you can. Each breath you take is going to differ in how long you inhale and exhale.
** Do you think this program is accurate to .1 or .01 ... **
I believe the answer is b., in that the timer is accurate to within .01 of a second. Most of all the time intervals are .02, .01, .03. and a common difference is between the majority was .015625. This in some way must be using to either round up or down by the paricular place holder thats in the spot its looking for.
** Copy of a few lines of your spreadsheet from the TIMER program. **
MyBreaths
event number clock time time interval
1 8.890625 8.890625
2 10.85938 1.96875
3 13.60938 2.75
4 17.53906 3.929688
5 20.40625 2.867188
** **
1 hour
** **
&#Your work looks good. See my notes. Let me know if you have any questions. &#