Is the only difference between the two is; experimental error uses significant figures and percentage of error doesn't?

I've always thought of experimental error as a more "general" term to errors. For example, if you forgot (I certainly hope you didn't though!) to add a specific reagent, or perhaps contaminated one of your reagents accidently, this could be considered experimental error. Surely, you can't call this percentage of error, as it'd be impossible to arrive at a calculable numerical answer.

I've always thought of experimental error as a more "general" term to errors. For example, if you forgot (I certainly hope you didn't though!) to add a specific reagent, or perhaps contaminated one of your reagents accidently, this could be considered experimental error. Surely, you can't call this percentage of error, as it'd be impossible to arrive at a calculable numerical answer.

 

No, I think the terminology is in terms of quantifying the precision, rather than acknowledging mistakes.

 

Numerical values (absolute errors) and percentage values (relative errors) are useful in error propagation, i.e. finding the resultant error from two or more terms in an equation that have an error associated with them. Added quantities have additive absolute errors (in quadrature) while multiplied quantities have additive relative errors (again, in quadrature)