Question

John estimated the height of his office building to be 13m . The actual height of his office building was 14.7m .

Find the absolute error and the percent error of John's estimate. If necessary, round your answers to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

Percent error = 11.6%

Explanation:

Given the following data;

Actual height, A = 14.7 m

Estimated height, E = 13 m

a. To find the absolute error;

Absolute error = A - E

Absolute error = 14.7 - 13

Absolute error = 1.7

b. To find the percent error;

Percent error can be defined as a measure of the extent to which an experimental (estimated) value differs from the actual or theoretical value.

Mathematically, it is given by this expression;

`Percent \; error = \frac {experimental \;value - theoretical \; value}{ theoretical \;value} *100`

Substituting into the equation, we have;

`Percent \; error = \frac {13 - 14.7}{14.7} *100`

`Percent \; error = \frac {1.7}{14.7} *100`

`Percent \; error = 0.1157 *100`

Percent error = 11.57 ≈ 11.6%