What is Relative Error?
Relative error helps compare the error in a measurement to the actual value. It gives the accuracy of measurement in comparison to the real size. For example, if we have to measure the weight of a book and find it to be 5% more than its actual weight, the relative error would be 5%. This helps in understanding the size of the mistake we made in our measurement. And, unlike many measurements, relative error does not have any specific unit. It is expressed in percentage by multiplying with 100.
Relative Error Formula
The formula of relative error is:
Relative Error = (Absolute error / True Value)
here,
- Absolute Error is the magnitude of the difference between the measured value and the true value.
- True Value is the actual or known value of the quantity being measured.
This formula helps to quantify how accurate a measurement is relative to the true value, expressed as a percentage.
Absolute Error and Relative Error: Formula and Equation
Absolute error measures the size of the difference between the estimated value and the true value, whereas relative error expresses this difference as a percentage of the true value. Absolute and relative error are two different methods to calculate the difference between a measured or calculated value and the true or expected value.
In this article, we will understand the difference between both in detail.
Table of Content
- What is Absolute Error?
- Absolute Error Formula
- What is Relative Error?
- Relative Error Formula
- Mean Absolute Error
- Difference Between Absolute and Relative Error
- Difference Between Applications of Absolute Error and Relative Error
- Conclusion