A 50 mL beaker has an uncertainty of ± 10%. What is the absolute uncertainty for this beaker?

The absolute uncertainty is 10%.

Explanation:

The absolute uncertainty, sometimes referred to as absolute error, is the size of the possible range of values where by the actual or true value of a measurement probably lies.

The uncertainty of the 50 mL beaker is given as ± 10%. This implies that the volume recorded using the beaker will either be 10 % above or below the actual volume.

The absolute uncertainty ignores the direction of the error, whether above or below, and is mostly concerned with the magnitude of the error. We simply ignore the signs of the uncertainty and this will give the value of the absolute uncertainty.

The absolute uncertainty for this beaker is ± 5 mL.

Explanation

The uncertainty is the measure of error an instrument can exhibit during measurement.

It is the error range in any kind of measurement.

There are two kinds of uncertainty: relative and absolute.

Relative uncertainty is the percentage of error occurred during measurement while absolute uncertainty quantifies the perfect value of error range with the measuring unit.

In this problem, the relative uncertainty was given as ±10 % and the estimated value is 50 mL.

So the conversion from relative uncertainty to absolute uncertainty can be done by the following formula

Absolute uncertainty=Relative uncertainty*Estimated value

Absolute uncertainty=10/100*50=5 mL

So the value can be written as 50 mL±5 mL with the absolute uncertainty as 5 mL.