How to Calculate Relative Error

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Watch more Intermediate Math Skills videos: http://www.howcast.com/videos/437601-... • When you make a measurement, it is important to know how accurate it is. Use relative error to express accuracy as a relative quantity. • Step 1: Understand relative error • Understand that relative error is an indication of how accurate a measurement is relative to the size of what is being measured. • Step 2: Make a measurement • Make a measurement. You might, for example, decide to measure the length of an object or its weight. • Step 3: Determine accuracy • Determine how accurate your measurement is. For example, if you use a meter stick to measure an object's length, you might reasonably estimate the accuracy of the measurement to be plus or minus 1 millimeter. Accuracy can be converted to absolute error. • Step 4: Calculate absolute error • Convert accuracy units to units of absolute error by making sure the measurement and accuracy units are consistent. • Tip • For example, if an object determined to be 1 meter long is measured to within an accuracy of plus or minus 1 millimeter, the absolute error 1 millimeter times 1 meter divided by 1000 millimeter or .001 meter. • Step 5: Calculate relative error • Calculate the relative error by dividing the absolute error by the measured value of the object. In the example given, the relative error is .001 meter divided by 1 meter or .001. It's that easy! • Did You Know? • The biblical cubit was the length of a man's forearm or the distance from the tip of the elbow to the end of his middle finger.

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