Submitted by slackslackliner t3_11dlvyu in askscience
saywherefore t1_jadf9gk wrote
The easiest way to see the effect of uncertainties in a calculation is to redo the sums with the extreme values of the range.
So let’s say your average value was 20cm^3 per 10 seconds. The limits are:
20 - 1 = 19cm^3 per 10 seconds = 19 x 6 = 114 cm^3 per minute
20 + 1 = 21cm^3 per 10 seconds etc
This also helps to see how uncertainties combine, by considering all the limits that affect the final result in the same direction, although as another commenter alluded to, you don’t necessarily need to combine all your uncertainties linearly.
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