what is the difference between reliable and accurate?

Question

I am trying to write science homework but do not know when to use which word! :S

Answer 1

Lemme guess AQA GCSE Science and How Science works..


An accurate result is true to the true value - so its as true as possible. E.g. if you were measuring the time it took for lead oxide to react with potassium, the most accurate reading woule be the most real, true time.

To make results more accurate, you use better quality of instruments - e.g. a thermometer which is more sensative, or an electronic scale instead of just a normal balance

Reliable means that if your results were repeated, or if you compared your results to somebody else you'd get the same results. To be reliable you just do repeats.


But whats the difference? Well something can be reliable but not always accurate. Eg. if you timed how long it took Acid + Alkali to react so indicator turned green, its not very accurate, as you cant really tell when its green, or when its yellowy green or greeny blue. But if you repeated it 3 times and got more or less the same results, then its reliable

Answer 2

Reliable Science Definition

Answer 3

The definition of reliable is : 1. Capable of being relied on; dependable: a reliable assistant; a reliable car.
2. Yielding the same or compatible results in different clinical experiments or statistical trials.

The definition of accurate is : 1 Free from error or defect; consistent with a standard, rule, or model; precise; exact.
2. Careful or meticulous: an accurate typist.

So in your case a test would be reliable if it produces the same results every time you took the test and a test would be accurate if it produced results with no errors :)

Answer 4

1) The claimant's sincerity should weigh almost nothing in our deliberations; the most deluded people tend also to be the most sincere. 2) Of course not ... 3) No; emotional attachment to a belief is usually a strike against it, since truth stands on its own. If a proposition requires faith or some other sort of personal commitment, it probably failed to stand on its own when first put forward. The ways to tell between an empty claim and an accurate one vary based on the nature of the claim (is it about fact? opinion? policy? the physical world? the so-called supernatural realm?), what information is available, and what tests are possible. The three points you bring forward are just illustrations of the most common pitfalls in evaluating claims.

Answer 5

Reliability is the attribute that describes that a device functions in a repetitive and predictive way. This includes that no random and unexpected behavior will occur and that the time to fail or corrective maintenance is longer than that of an average comparable device.

Accuracy on the other hand is the attribute of a device to measure or generate its intended parameters with a very small deviation from nominal. A measuring device shall indicate a measurement that is very close to the actual value, with a known small deviation (tolerance) A generating device shall produce a parameter that is very close to the nominal set value with a known small deviation (tolerance)

Answer 6

Okay lets put this in easy terms

Reliable means:- Well to make a result more reliable you repeat the experiment and get an average

Accurate means:- How close the answer is to the true value .. so to get a more accurate result, you use an answer to 2 decimal places rather than one ( 0.00 rather than 0.0)

Hope this helps!!

Answer 7

Reliability is consistency of result, independent of whether or not that result is accurate.

Accuracy is the correctness of a result.

Results of 4,3,4,3,4, where the real value is "3.5", is reliable and accurate.

Results of 4,3,4,3,4, where the real value is "8", is reliable, but not accurate.

Results of 1,4,6,2,3, are unreliable results, even though one or more of the individual results may be accurate.

Reliability may be similar to "precision" in this definition.

Answer 8

Reliable means you can get the same result time after time, even if it's wrong.

Accurate means that the result is correct or truthful.

Answer 9

reliability delivers the accuracy. being accurate is what you get out of something reliable

Answer 10

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