A student measures the time of flight of a projectile five times and records the following readings: 4.6 s , 4.8 s , 5.0 s , 5.2 s , and 5.4 s . Which of the following statements regarding this set of measurements is incorrect?

Step-by-step solution

First, calculate the mean value of the observations, which represents the most probable true value: t_ mean = 4.6 + 4.8 + 5.0 + 5.2 + 5.4 5 = 25.0 5 = 5.0 s . Next, find the absolute errors in each measurement by taking the magnitude of the difference between each reading and the mean value: t₁ = |4.6 - 5.0| = 0.4 s t₂ = |4.8 - 5.0| = 0.2 s t₃ = |5.0 - 5.0| = 0.0 s t₄ = |5.2 - 5.0| = 0.2 s t₅ = |5.4 - 5.0| = 0.4 s The mean absolute error is the arithmetic mean of these absolute errors: t_ mean = 0.4 + 0.2 + 0.0 + 0