If your number is lets say 1020.3546 and you were supposed to round to something like 2 or 3 significant figures, how would you do it? Could you please gime me other examples as well?
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Zero's are the problem.
Captive zeros are significant, like those in 1020.3546 which has 8 sig fig
Zeros to the left of non-zero integers are NEVER significant, so 0.0000345 is 3 sig fig
Zeros to the right of non-zero integers are significant if there is a decimal, but not significant is there is none, so 10.000000 has 8 sig fig (I didn't HAVE to put those zeros there) while 10000000 has 1 sig fig (although some books say this case is "ambiguous").
So we have a problem, 1020.3546 to 2 sig fig would be 100-------- and what do I put for the rest? If I put 1000.0000, that is still 8 sig fig If I put 1000, that is only one. Scientific notation is the answer, write it as 1.0 X 10^3 because any numbers you see in scientific notation are significant.
Captive zeros are significant, like those in 1020.3546 which has 8 sig fig
Zeros to the left of non-zero integers are NEVER significant, so 0.0000345 is 3 sig fig
Zeros to the right of non-zero integers are significant if there is a decimal, but not significant is there is none, so 10.000000 has 8 sig fig (I didn't HAVE to put those zeros there) while 10000000 has 1 sig fig (although some books say this case is "ambiguous").
So we have a problem, 1020.3546 to 2 sig fig would be 100-------- and what do I put for the rest? If I put 1000.0000, that is still 8 sig fig If I put 1000, that is only one. Scientific notation is the answer, write it as 1.0 X 10^3 because any numbers you see in scientific notation are significant.