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 **
Sorry for the double submit; I realized I didn't identify myself at all on the last one.
** Describe what you see on your first 10 clicks **
The first column displays the event number and the second column indicates the number of seconds that have passed since the program was opened. The third column expresses the interval between the events.
** Your TIMER data from 20 fast clicks **
2 398.9336 .1796875
3 399.1016 .1679688
4 399.2852 .1835938
5 399.4531 .1679688
6 399.6328 .1796875
7 399.8047 .171875
8 399.9961 .1914063
9 400.1836 .1875
10 400.3633 .1796875
11 400.5547 .1914063
12 400.7461 .1914063
13 400.9141 .1679688
14 401.1172 .203125
15 401.3047 .1875
16 401.4844 .1796875
17 401.6758 .1914063
18 401.8789 .203125
19 402.0664 .1875
20 402.2383 .171875
21 402.4492 .2109375
** Your average time interval for 20 time intervals **
.184765645
I did't know the easier way so I added up the intervals and divided by 20. Looking back, however, I would probably use an Excel spreadsheet to find the average. Also I could have subtracted the first clock time from the last clock time and divided that by 20.
** Your frequency distribution for the 20 time intervals (interval, number of times it was observed) **
.1796875, 4
.1679688, 3
.1835938, 1
.171875, 2
.1914063, 4
.1875, 3
.203125, 1
.2109375, 1
** Your general comment to this point **
** Why did you observe only certain time intervals? **
The timer program obviously rounds off values and only measures to a specific level of accuracy. The timer program is not flawed and is useful as long as the operator is aware of the accuracy (and inaccuracy) of the timer.
** What did you see when you looked at the differences between time successive time intervals? **
There are many repeating values in the last column, indicating that the timer may be less accurate than previously projected and may be measured at certain points that keep the difference between the intervals consistent. It appears to only measure in intervals that are multiples 0.015625.
** Your time intervals for 7 complete breaths: **
3.613281
10.34766
10.94531
12.72656
13.08984
16.27344
18.73438
25.02734
16.66406
13.41016
** Your general comment to this point: **
** Why did you rarely, if ever, observe that same time interval twice? **
Breathing is not nearly as regular as clicking, and the interval between breaths, to a point, tends to increase as the breather becomes more relaxed.
** Do you think this program is accurate to .1 or .01 ... **
b. The timer program is capable of determining the time between two events accurately to within about .01 second.
I think this because that is the minimum number of decimal places in the results, but it almost certainly wasn't exactly .25 second considering all variables involved.
** Copy of a few lines of your spreadsheet from the TIMER program. **
event number clock time time interval
1 6.738281 6.738281
2 16.79297 10.05469
3 27.71875 10.92578
4 40.89844 13.17969
5 58.28125 17.38281
6 77.35156 19.07031
7 109.4375 32.08594
** **
Not sure...I did it throughout the course of the day at work.
** **
&#Your work looks very good. Let me know if you have any questions. &#