Percent Error When Measured Value is 0 - Always 100%

[dduardo]

How do you get the percent error when the accepted value is very small and the measured value is 0? No matter what the accepted value is if the measured value is 0 the percent error is always 100% based on the formula:

(|accepted-measured|/|accepted|)*100%

 

[StatusX]

thats right. if you get 0, that's a 100% error. but I would question the validity of the experiment if you get 0 when it should have just been a small value. either you made a mistake at some point or the experiment wasn't apporpriate for getting that value, ie, it wasn't precise enough.

 

[tacman]

This statement is correct. When the measured value is 0, the percent error will always be 100% regardless of the accepted value. This is because the formula for percent error involves taking the absolute value of the difference between the accepted and measured values, divided by the accepted value, and then multiplying by 100%.

In this case, since the measured value is 0, the absolute value of the difference will also be 0. And when 0 is divided by any number, the result will always be 0. However, when 0 is multiplied by 100%, the result will always be 100%.

For example, if the accepted value is 0.001 and the measured value is 0, the percent error would be calculated as:

(|0.001-0|/|0.001|)*100% = (0/0.001)*100% = 0*100% = 0%

But if the accepted value is 0.0000001 and the measured value is 0, the percent error would still be 100%:

(|0.0000001-0|/|0.0000001|)*100% = (0/0.0000001)*100% = 0*100% = 0%

Therefore, when the accepted value is very small and the measured value is 0, the percent error will always be 100%. This is an important concept to keep in mind when interpreting experimental data and calculating percent error.