Suppose you and two lab partners need to weigh six pennies quickly; you have acc
ID: 715001 • Letter: S
Question
Suppose you and two lab partners need to weigh six pennies quickly; you have access to three balances so each of you weighs two pennies. Suppose exactly one of the six pennies is made of copper, but no one in your group knows about the change in penny composition. Would the weight of the copper penny look like a blunder, a systematic error, or a random error? How would you try to determine the source of the error? Ultimately, how would you convince yourself that one penny really weighs more than the others?
Explanation / Answer
This error corresponds to an information bias, since the correct sampling is altered, not taking into account the same conditions for sampling.
One of the alternatives to determine the origin of the error, is to weigh all the coins in the same scale, so you can determine if it is a systematic error.
To determine if it is a random error, it is enough to weigh a greater number of coins and observe the tendency of the magnitude of the error.