Problem 1-16 asked for the uncertainty on the time for the pulsar to
rotate 1 million times. The uncertainty on the time
to rotate
once (i.e., the period) is
ms
(the
refers to the last decimal place of
). We found the
fractional uncertainty, which is
over
. The time
to rotate
times is
times the period. The
fractional uncertainty on that time will be the same as the
fractional uncertainty on
. If we know the fractional uncertainty
on a quantity, we can calculate the absolute uncertainty on the
quantity by multiplying the fractional uncertainty by the quantity.