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==Examples==
As an example, if the exact value is 50 and the approximation is 49.9, then the absolute error is 0.1 and the relative error is 0.1/50 = 0.002 = 0.2%. Another example would be if, in measuring a 6 mL beaker, the value read was 5 mL. The correct reading being 6 mL, this means the percent error in that particular situation is, rounded, 16.7%.
The relative error is often used to compare approximations of numbers of widely differing size; for example, approximating the number 1,000 with an absolute error of 3 is, in most applications, much worse than approximating the number 1,000,000 with an absolute error of 3; in the first case the relative error is 0.003 and in the second it is only 0.000003.
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