The time period for one oscillation of a long swinging pendulum is to be determined. The time is to be measured using a hand held stop watch with a precision of 1/100th of a second. The time period is known to be about 2 seconds. Which of the following measurement techniques best reduces the uncertainty on the measured value of the time period ?

Engineering

Physics

SHM of Simple Pendulum

Errors

SI Units

Question

The time period for one oscillation of a long swinging pendulum is to be determined. The time is to be measured using a hand held stop watch with a precision of 1/100^th of a second. The time period is known to be about 2 seconds. Which of the following measurement techniques best reduces the uncertainty on the measured value of the time period ?

Using a stopwatch that measures with a precision of 1/1000^th of a second.

Having 10 different people to measure the time period and taking an average.

Measuring the time for 10 swings and dividing the result by 10.

Measuring the time for 1 swing 10 times and taking the average.

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Measuring the time for 10 swings and dividing the result by 10 gives advantage of minimizing the fractional error. As the human error is of the same order and dividing by 10 reduces the fractional error.