A single slit diffraction experiment is performed to determine the slit width using the equation, b d D =m , where b is the slit width, D the shortest distance between the slit and the screen, d the distance between the m^ th diffraction maximum and the central maximum, and is the wavelength. D and d are measured with scales of least count of 1 cm and 1 mm, respectively. The values of and m are known precisely to be

Step-by-step solution

Original question asked about absolute error which can be both minimum or maximum, we added word maximum to make it clear for students aligned & b = m D d =360 ~m & ~b _ = 3 600 10⁻³ 1.01 4 10⁻³ ~m =454.5 ~m & ~b _ = 3 600 10⁻³ 0.99 6 10⁻³ ~m =297 ~m aligned Maximum value of b gives error, b ₁=94.5 ~m Minimum value of b gives error, b₂=63 ~m We always report the largest error, hence correct answer should be 94.5 ~m