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 10 rows with numbers in two columns. The first column lists the time that has past. The second column list the time passed between each interval.
** Your TIMER data from 20 fast clicks **
1 1.5 1.5
2 1.640625 .140625
3 1.796875 .15625
4 1.9375 .140625
5 2.109375 .171875
6 2.25 .140625
7 2.421875 .171875
8 2.5625 .140625
9 2.71875 .15625
10 2.875 .15625
11 3.03125 .15625
12 3.1875 .15625
13 3.34375 .15625
14 3.515625 .171875
15 3.671875 .15625
16 3.8125 .140625
17 4 .1875
18 4.1875 .1875
19 4.34375 .15625
20 4.515625 .171875
21 4.6875 .171875
** Your average time interval for 20 time intervals **
.2232142857
I added up all the intervals and divided the sum by 21.
I suspect you included the 1.5 in your sum. That was not an interval between two quick clicks.
** Your frequency distribution for the 20 time intervals (interval, number of times it was observed) **
.140625, 5
.15625, 8
.171875, 5
.1875, 2
** Your general comment to this point **
** Why did you observe only certain time intervals? **
I don't think it's flawed I think that even the computer doesn't have the accuracy to that many significant figures. I believe it rounds to the nearest number of accuracy.
** What did you see when you looked at the differences between time successive time intervals? **
The last column shows the time differential between each interval. The timer program has a feature that calculates the difference between the previous and preceding intervals.
** Your time intervals for 7 complete breaths: **
4.796875
3.953125
4.25
4.140625
4.21875
4.6875
4.140625
3.796875
4.265625
** Your general comment to this point: **
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to skip lines. Your example has spacing.
** Why did you rarely, if ever, observe that same time interval twice? **
Our breathing pattern is not repetitious and there is no way for us to be that precise in starting the timer exactly on queue every time we start to inhale. Also, because we are not rushing the timer, I think it actually has more time to give an accurate time.
** Do you think this program is accurate to .1 or .01 ... **
d. I think that timer can only be accurate up to 4 decimal places. I think that especially when doing the fast-clicks, there's no way to be accurate up to more than 4 decimal places.
** Copy of a few lines of your spreadsheet from the TIMER program. **
1 -7447.219 -7447.219
2 -7442.422 4.796875
3 -7438.469 3.953125
** **
1hr
** **
Be sure you understand your error in calculating that first average. You have to confine your calculations to the data that pertains to the quantity being measured.