Question

A 25 mL syringe is used to measure both 10mL of a solution and 20mL of a solution. Which measurement, if any, has the biggest percentage error

Answer 1

All measuring devices have some given error in their measurements, such that the percent error is given by 100% times the quotient between the error and the measure itself.

From this, we will see that the 10mL measurement has the largest percentage error.

Here we have a 25 mL syringe, and we want to use it to measure both 10mL of a solution and 20 mL of a solution.

We do not to do any math to know that the smaller quantity will have a bigger percentage error.

Why? Well, because the syringe is the same in both cases, so the numerator in the fraction that gives the percentage error will be the same for both measures.

So the only thing that defines the percentage error will be the measure itself that goes in the denominator. Thus, having a smaller measure means that the denominator is smaller, so the fraction is larger, thus the percentage error is larger.

For example, just to also show some numbers, if the error of the syringe is 0.5 mL, the percentage error for the 10 mL measure is:

p₁ = 100%*(0.5 mL)/(10 mL) = 5%

While for the 20 mL measure the percentage error is

p₂ = 100%*(0.5mL/20mL) = 2.5%

If you want to learn more, you can read:

brainly.com/question/4170313