Can measurements be accurate and not precise?

Answer 1

Precision is a measure of how close to each other repeated measurements are. Accuracy is how close to a target value the measurement is. The only reason this unneccessary bit of info is in your book is to cram kids' heads with useless info. Very few scientists or engineers care about this trivia. Real science is about understanding how things work.

Answer 2

Yes, measurements can be accurate but not precise. Accuracy refers to how close a measurement is to the true value, while precision refers to how close multiple measurements are to each other. So, a measurement can be accurate if it is close to the true value, but not precise if it varies widely from repeated measurements.

Answer 3

yes.

precisions means that your results are repeated over and over again with very similar results.

Accuracy is the goal for the measurement-what you hope to obtain.

So if you are trying for a distance of 1cm, and get repeated results as 1.6 cm, that is good precision and poor accuracy.

learned that in physics last year =]

Answer 4

Precision has to do with the ability of your measuring instrument. For example, a ruler may be able to measure down to maybe 1 mm. A caliper, on the other hand, is a much more precise measuring instrument and may be able to measure to hundreds or thousandths of a millimeter.

Accuracy has to do with how close your measurement is to the actual value. For example, you may measure the diameter of a penny with a caliper (a very precise instrument) and report your result as 2.1023 mm (an obviously incorrect - but very precise - value) because you don't know how to read the caliper. In other words, your measurement of the penny is precise but not accurate.

Answer 5

No, because a value measured 10 times can be very close to each other (precise) but very far from the actual measurement of the object.

Answer 6

Yes. In fact, almost all measurements are approximations. Even the most accurate of scientific devices have a degree of uncertainty to them.