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 three columns of numbers. The first column is numbered 1 through 10. The other two columns are values for each time. The middle column is the initial time when I clicked the timer button. The third column is the time interval from the last click to the current. My times were about 0.5 seconds apart.
Your TIMER data from 20 fast clicks
1 251.6406 251.6406
2 251.7344 .09375
3 251.8281 .09375
4 251.9063 .078125
5 252.0156 .109375
6 252.1094 .09375
7 252.2031 .09375
8 252.2813 .078125
9 252.4063 .125
10 252.5156 .109375
11 252.5938 .078125
12 252.7188 .125
13 252.8438 .125
14 252.9375 .09375
15 253.0313 .09375
16 253.1406 .109375
17 253.25 .109375
18 253.4375 .1875
19 253.5313 .09375
20 253.6406 .109375
21 253.7344 .09375
22 253.8281 .09375
Your average time interval for 20 time intervals
0.0994
I got this answer by subtracting my initial time, 251.6406, from my final time which was 253.8281. This gave me 2.1875 seconds. Then I divided that by the number of time intervals I had which was 22. This gave me an average time interval of about 0.0994 seconds.
Your frequency distribution for the 20 time intervals (interval, number of times it was observed)
.078125, 3
.09375, 9
.109375, 5
.125, 3
.1875, 1
Your general comment to this point
Why did you observe only certain time intervals?
The timer is not flawed or useless. The program is much more accurate than if I tried to time it myself using a stop watch. I think that the timer simply rounds up in order to provide measurable and comparable information. If it didn't, there would be infinite numbers after each decimal.
What did you see when you looked at the differences between time successive time intervals?
The last column tells us the change in time interval. For example the difference between time intervals 10 and 11 is in the last column on line 10. The negative numbers mean that the most recent interval was shorter, and the positive numbers mean that the next interval was longer. The TIMER program usually rounds to four or five significant figures in the last column. The numbers also appear frequently, but randomly.
Your time intervals for 7 complete breaths:
7.078125
8.8125
8.359375
10.46875
10.125
10.1875
10.07813
10.29688
10.375
Your general comment to this point:
Why did you rarely, if ever, observe that same time interval twice?
First of all there were fewer intervals in this trial. I took 10 breaths, whereas, earlier I did 22 fast clicks. Also, the intervals were longer and maybe this made the intervals easier to measure.
Do you think this program is accurate to .1 or .01 ...
I believe that statement D is the most accurate. As I look over the times for the past exercises, I see that most numbers go to about 4 or 5 decimal places. This leads me to believe that the TIMER can accurately measure to at least 4 decimal places and round up the last or 5th decimal place.
Copy of a few lines of your spreadsheet from the TIMER program.
Breathing intervals
event number,clock time,time interval
1 , 1290.688 , 1290.688
2 , 1298.656 , 7.96875
3 , 1306.594 , 7.9375
4 , 1315.891 , 9.296875
5 , 1324.25 , 8.359375
6 , 1332.391 , 8.140625
20 minutes
Very good.