Author: mschmidt
Date: 2009-09-08 21:23
A bathroom scale, even an expensive digital one, is probably only accurate to the nearest half pound, whatever they might tell you. I can get different weights on my bathroom scale (up to 4 lbs different!) depending on how I stand on it (but it's a cheap scale).
One way of estimating the likely range of error in a series of measurements (here you are taking the difference of two uncertain measurements) is to take the square root of the sum of squared errors: sqrt (0.5^2 + 0.5^2) = 0.7 lbs. So, if the uncertainty in your bathroom scale is plus or minus 0.5 lbs, then the uncertainty in the difference--the mass of the oboe--is 0.7 lbs.
So your oboe has a mass of 34 ounces, plus or minus 11.2 ounces. Johnt's 22 oz. isn't too far off from the lower end of this interval.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
Post Edited (2009-09-08 21:26)
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