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Imagine that your team has been assigned by a construction company to measure the dimensions of an empty lot in a subdivision. Briefly give examples of the 6 types/sources of errors described above and explain what you would do to minimize them.

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Answer:

All explained below.

Explanation:

The sources of errors are;

1) Instrumental Errors: This could be as a result of wrong calibration of equipment.

2) Observational Systematic errors: An example of this is parallax error while taking a reading.

3) Environmental random errors: In this type of error, a slight change in the temperature of humidity in the lot could possibly affect the accuracy of the measurement.

4) Observational random errors: This refers to errors gotten when the values are incorrectly read or incorrectly interpolated.

5) Environmental systematic errors: An example of this is that the current supplied to the instrument taking the reading may be low. Thus, this may affect effective reading.

6) Theoretical systematic errors: This could arise from over simplification of the experimental model. An example of this is that the experiment might require a totally frictionless surface which may not be achievable. And this will lead to wrong measurement.

Minimizing the errors:

1) Instrumental Errors can be minimized by ensuring proper calibration of equipment before use.

2)Observational Systematic errors can be minimized by ensuring readings are not taken at an angle.

3)Environmental random errors could be minimized by carrying out the experiment in a relatively good laboratory under fair weather conditions.

4)Observational random errors can be minimized by ensuring that the results from the readings are properly collated and the rightly interpolated as the case may be.

5)Environmental systematic errors can be minimized by ensuring stable power source to the instrument being used for the reading.

6)Theoretical systematic errors could be minimized by taking an average of at least 3 tests result to get a fair representation of the final result.

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