I need help with standard deviation, college chemistry!

Question

lifeisadangerousgame · Answer

Can you show me step by step, how they received this answer?

frostbite · Answer

I just follow the equation step by step:


$$mean~= \frac{ 3.490+3.437+3.462 }{ 3 }=3.463$$

$$SD = \sqrt{\frac{ (3.490 -3.463)^2 + (3.437-3.463)^2 + (3.462-3.463)^2  }{ 3-1 }}= 0.02651≈0.03$$

So the mean is $3.463 \pm 0.03$

frostbite · Answer

The standard deviation is the sum of how much your data deviates from the mean. you then normalize it to your amount of data points (else your error would increase the more data you have). The reason we square the subtraction of sample data from mean is due to the avoidance of negative numbers (as we want the error not to cancel out and give a wrong picture), but as we square we obviously also need to take the square root of the result in the end.

lifeisadangerousgame · Answer

Hey! I know I'm ten days late, but thank you for taking the time to answer me. I got the notification at like 4 in the morning and didn't see it until the end of the day, but I appreciate it.

frostbite · Answer

No problem at all, I do hope the explanation was somewhat helpful. :)