GingerBread27
Sep8-04, 08:39 PM
Time standards are now based on atomic clocks. A promising second standard is based on pulsars, which are rotating neutron stars (highly compact stars consisting only of neutrons). Some rotate at a rate that is highly stable, sending out a radio beacon that sweeps briefly across Earth once with each rotation, like a lighthouse beacon. Suppose a pulsar rotates once every 1.424 806 448 872 75 2 ms, where the trailing 2 indicates the uncertainty in the last decimal place (it does not mean 2 ms).
(a) How many times does the pulsar rotate in 21.0 days?
The answer is 1.27e9
(b) How much time does the pulsar take to rotate 1.0 x 10^6 times? (Give your answer to at least 4 decimal places.)
The answer is 1424.8064 seconds
(c) What is the associated uncertainty of this time?
For this problem I am unsure of how the uncertainty is calculated. I understand parts a and b but not C. Please help.
(a) How many times does the pulsar rotate in 21.0 days?
The answer is 1.27e9
(b) How much time does the pulsar take to rotate 1.0 x 10^6 times? (Give your answer to at least 4 decimal places.)
The answer is 1424.8064 seconds
(c) What is the associated uncertainty of this time?
For this problem I am unsure of how the uncertainty is calculated. I understand parts a and b but not C. Please help.