How does one find the percent uncertainty in the volume of a sphere whose radius is r equals 1point56 plus or minus 0point05 meters?

Answer 1

-- Find the volume of a sphere with radius = 1.56

-- Find the volume of a sphere with radius = 1.61

-- The uncertainty is the difference between the bigger result and the smaller one.

-- For the percent uncertainty, find out what percent that difference is of the (r = 1.56) volume.

(Divide the difference of the two volumes by the volume you get with r=1.56 .

Multiply the result of the division by 100, and you have the percent of uncertainty.)

(Just knocking it out quickly on our calculator, we get about 9.93% uncertainty.

This may or may not be correct, and you should not depend on it. But if you get

the same answer, then we're probably both right.)

Here's an important tool that you'll need to do this job:

Volume of a sphere = 4/3 (pi) (radius)3