Friday, May 14, 2010

Why is it important to control variables in an experiment?

scientific inquiryWhy is it important to control variables in an experiment?
If you don't understand your variables, how can you make a valid conclusion on your experiment?





The conclusion would be meaningless without knowing exactly what went into the results, that is, the variables.Why is it important to control variables in an experiment?
bc otherwise change could be attributed to more than just the one thing you're experimenting about.
Simply put, you want to make sure that the final result of your experiment is due to the principle being studied, and not an unknown cause.
Too many variables make computation of results much more complex ( assuming in your final analysis you want to prove a relationship by a formula) and render you result more inaccurate by introducing a error of margin with every variable
If you don't control the variables, how do you know what causes the change you are measuring?
without a controlled variable you wouldn't be able to find specific data. You will have lots of data but none of it relevent with what your looking for...for instance....you want to find out in which soil that a tomato plant grows best in...if you change the temperature of the air and the amount of water in each tomato as well as the type of soil.....you wouldn't be able to know exactly which soil is best due to all the other variables.
Are you testing the experiments or the variables
to keep your results reasonable. if you dont controll the variables anything could vary the results and you could never know what it was
when variables are not controlled you won't know why the outcome is what it is and you can't prove anything
an experiment by definition must be controlled.....each experiment can only have a limited number of variables or you are not comparing apples to apples so to speak.
if you dont control variables then you havent solved anything, for instance, you wana know why the barrel exploded. Ok so you find a barrel and kick it, it dosent explode, so what did you learn? nothing, because they werent the same type of barrel, you have to control variables to learn what is causing what you want to know.
It is important to know and control variables in any experiment in order to make the experiment reproducible outside of the lab.
the control of variable in an experiment is to reduce the risk that the results of the experiment are influenced by anything besides the variable being tested
Think about if you were looking at temperature and air pressure as two variables that affect a certain process. If you want to know how the temperature affects the process you must control the air pressure so that the only difference in the experiments is the temp. If you don't control a variable it will be nearly impossible to find the affect of a single variable.
It is pertinent to control the variables of any experiment. If all factors are not controlled the data is not concrete. If you have factors contributing to changing the eventual outcome you will never get the information correctly. This is another reason why it is always important to run a ';control'; set along with any experiment.
that way you know you are getting acurate results. so you can duplicate the experimentif need be and get the EXACT same thing.
If you don't control the variables and let them go crazy the conclusion that you come up with will be invalid. Think about it this way...when you cook something, let's say rice and you add too much water you will end up with porridge. If you don't add enough water then you end up with hard rice. The variable here is water. You need to control it to get the results you want. It's not the best analogy but hopefully you get the point.
Variables are the things that you change or keep the same in your experiment. If you change more than one thing, how do you know which change affected the results? If you change just one thing, than the results will be attributed to this one change.
Well the other day my variables got out of control, those damn chickens got everywhere, had to spray paint em.

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