Question

Suppose you had used a less sensitive balance for the Archimedes method of getting volume of an object based on the difference in mass in water and out of water. Would that change the precisions of your density for that method?. They define sensitivity as the scale to which things are measured and precision as how repeatable something is.

Answer 1

If you think about it, changing the scale to which something is measured does not affect the repeatability of the measurement. For instance, if you have a meter stick which was labeled incorrectly, that doesn't affect the fact that every measurement you take of a certain fixed distance will still be the same. Precision does not equal accuracy.

Answer 2

Answer:

There will be no change in the sensitivity of the method.

Explanation:

A less sensitive measuring method is less likely to record the small errors of measurement. The sensitivity of a measuring device depends on the error of measurement that it can accommodate. For example, is the length of a pen was to be measured by the ruler and a vernier caliper, the two measurements would be different. This is because the ruler would give a measurement to the nearest centimeter. However, the vernier caliper would provide a measurement to the nearest 0.1 cm which improves the accuracy and sensitivity of the measurement as well. Thus, the more sensitive an instrument is, the more accurate it is.