Is this experiment reliable?? (1 Viewer)

[leesh95]

We measured the heat of solution for 2 salts.
The result for salt 1 was 13 kj/mol while the actual result from the data table is supposed to be 15kj/mol.
The second salt was also off the actual value by 17 kj/mol

The experiment was repeated using the same equipment

Is it reliable??

 

[falsenthusiasm]

What do you think?

 

[planino]

Okay I'm not that good at these types of questions, but I'll take a stab at it (I could be horribly wrong, someone please correct me)

If similar values were obtained during repetitions, then the results are consistent, so the experiment is reliable, I'm guessing. However the accuracy of this experiment seems to be off due to the measured values being quite different to the true values. So the experiment is reliable, but not exactly accurate.

 

[leesh95]

So accuracy and reliability don't affect each other? An experiment can be one but not the other?

 

[planino]

reliability = consistent results, obtained through repetition i.e. an experiment is reliable if it yields consistently similar results under the same conditions.

accuracy = how far off the 'true' value the measured value is. To increase accuracy, you may use better (often more expensive) equipment or measure whatever you're measuring several times, remove any 'outlier' values and then average the rest

Hopefully these will help, but someone who's better at these types of science questions should be able to answer your questions better.

 

[planino]

bump