Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/section-a/1/solution
Past exam of the physics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2019 Section A 1 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Rearrange the supplied form of Kepler's third law to make the gravitational constant the subject:Convert the semi-major axis and orbital period to SI units before substitution:The central value is thereforeFor monomial uncertainty propagation, logarithmic differentiation givesIf the quoted errors are independent standard uncertainties, the variances of these contributions add:Thus , and the measured result under that statistical convention isThe semi-major axis measurement supplies the largest individual contribution to the relative uncertainty.
The paper does not specify whether its errors are statistical uncertainties or bounds. If they are maximum input errors, the first-order worst-case error propagation estimate adds magnitudes:Correlation between input errors would instead require the covariance terms in the general propagation of uncertainty formula; they are not specified.
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