Calculate Error Between Two Numbers
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a percentage of one (or both) values Use Percentage Change when comparing an Old Value to a New Value Use Percentage Error when comparing an Approximate Value to an Exact Value Use Percentage Difference when both new minus old over old values mean the same kind of thing (one value is not obviously older
Percentage Difference Equation
or better than the other). (Refer to those links for more details) How to Calculate Step 1: Subtract one value from
Initial Minus Final Divided By Initial
the other Step 2: Then divide by ... what? Percentage Change: Divide by the Old Value Percentage Error: Divide by the Exact Value Percentage Difference: Divide by the Average of The Two Values Step 3:
Percent Difference And Percent Change
Is the answer negative? Percentage Change: a positive value is an increase, a negative value is a decrease. Percentage Error: ignore a minus sign (just leave it off), unless you want to know if the error is under or over the exact value Percentage Difference: ignore a minus sign, because neither value is more important, so being "above" or "below" does not make sense. Step 4: Convert this into a percent difference chemistry definition percentage (multiply by 100 and add a % sign) The Formulas (Note: the "|" symbols mean absolute value, so negatives become positive.) Percent Change = New Value - Old Value × 100% |Old Value| Example: There were 200 customers yesterday, and 240 today: 240 - 200 × 100% = (40/200) × 100% = 20% |200| A 20% increase. Percent Error = |Approximate Value - Exact Value| × 100% |Exact Value| Example: I thought 70 people would turn up to the concert, but in fact 80 did! |70 - 80| × 100% = (10/80) × 100% = 12.5% |80| I was in error by 12.5% (Without using the absolute value, the error is -12.5%, meaning I under-estimated the value) Percentage Difference = | First Value - Second Value | × 100% (First Value + Second Value)/2 Example: "Best Shoes" gets 200 customers, and "Cheap Shoes" gets 240 customers: | 240 - 200 | × 100% = |40/220| × 100% = 18.18...% (200+240)/2 Percentage Difference Percentage Error Percentage Change Percentage Index Search :: Index :: About :: Contact :: Contribute :: Cite This Page :: Privacy Copyright © 2014 MathsIsFun.com
"sizes" of the things being compared. The comparison is expressed as a ratio and is a unitless number. By multiplying these ratios by 100 they can be expressed as percentages so the terms percentage change, percent(age) difference, or define percent difference chemistry relative percentage difference are also commonly used. The distinction between "change" and "difference" depends new-old/old formula on whether or not one of the quantities being compared is considered a standard or reference or starting value. When this occurs, percent change formula chemistry the term relative change (with respect to the reference value) is used and otherwise the term relative difference is preferred. Relative difference is often used as a quantitative indicator of quality assurance and quality control for http://www.mathsisfun.com/data/percentage-difference-vs-error.html repeated measurements where the outcomes are expected to be the same. A special case of percent change (relative change expressed as a percentage) called percent error occurs in measuring situations where the reference value is the accepted or actual value (perhaps theoretically determined) and the value being compared to it is experimentally determined (by measurement). Contents 1 Definitions 2 Formulae 3 Percent error 4 Percentage change 4.1 Example of percentages of percentages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_change_and_difference 5 Other change units 6 Examples 6.1 Comparisons 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links Definitions[edit] Given two numerical quantities, x and y, their difference, Δ = x - y, can be called their actual difference. When y is a reference value (a theoretical/actual/correct/accepted/optimal/starting, etc. value; the value that x is being compared to) then Δ is called their actual change. When there is no reference value, the sign of Δ has little meaning in the comparison of the two values since it doesn't matter which of the two values is written first, so one often works with |Δ| = |x - y|, the absolute difference instead of Δ, in these situations. Even when there is a reference value, if it doesn't matter whether the compared value is larger or smaller than the reference value, the absolute difference can be considered in place of the actual change. The absolute difference between two values is not always a good way to compare the numbers. For instance, the absolute difference of 1 between 6 and 5 is more significant than the same absolute difference between 100,000,001 and 100,000,000. We can adjust the comparison to take into account the "size" of the quantities involved, by defining, for positive values of xreference: Relative change (
as the value of p or the acceleration due to earth's gravity, g. Since http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Relative-Error these quantities have accepted or true values, we can calculate the percent error between our measurement percent difference of the value and the accepted value with the formula Sometimes, we will compare the results of two measurements of the same quantity. For instance, we may use two different methods to determine percent difference chemistry the speed of a rolling body. In this case, since there is not one accepted value for the speed of a rolling body, we will use the percent difference to determine the similarity of the measurements. This is found by dividing the absolute difference of the two measured values by their average, or Physics Lab Tutorials If you have a question or comment, send an e-mail to Lab Coordinator: Jerry Hester Copyright © 2006. Clemson University. All Rights Reserved. Photo's Courtesy Corel Draw. Last Modified on 01/27/2006 14:25:18.
this Article Home » Categories » Education and Communications » Subjects » Mathematics ArticleEditDiscuss Edit ArticlewikiHow to Calculate Relative Error Two Methods:Calculating Absolute ErrorCalculating Relative ErrorCommunity Q&A Absolute error is the actual amount you were off, or mistaken by, when measuring something. Relative error compares the absolute error against the size of the thing you were measuring. In order to calculate relative error, you must calculate the absolute error as well. If you tried to measure something that was 12 inches long and your measurement was off by 6 inches, the relative error would be very large. But, if you tried to measure something that was 120 feet long and only missed by 6 inches, the relative error would be much smaller -- even though the value of the absolute error, 6 inches, has not changed.[1] Steps Method 1 Calculating Absolute Error 1 When given an expected value, subtract the value you got from the expected value to get the Absolute Error. An expected value is usually found on tests and school labs. Basically, this is the most precise, common measurement to come up with, usually for common equations or reactions. You can compare your own results to get Absolute Error, which measures how far off you were from the expected results. To do so, simply subtract the measured value from the expected one. Even if the result is negative, make it positive. This is your absolute error![2] Example: You want to know how accurately you estimate distances by pacing them off. You pace from one tree to another and estimate that they're 18 feet apart. This is the experimental value. Then you come back with a long measuring tape to measure the exact distance, finding out that the trees are in fact 20 feet (6 meters) apart. That is the "real" value. Your absolute error is 20 - 18 = 2 feet (60.96 centimeters).[3] 2 Alternatively, when measuring something, assume the absolute error to be the smallest unit of measurement at your disposal. For example, if you're measuring something with a meter stick, the smallest unit marked on the meter stick is 1 millimeter (mm). So you know that your measurement is accurate to within + or - 1 mm; your absolute error is 1 mm.