To conclude this series on significant digits, I want to look at some details of their application. Specifically, we will consider questions about how they related to measured values, and to fixed constants. Measured values I’ll start with a question from 2011 about measurement and unit conversion: Changing Units … and Significant Figures? Suppose I …
Significant Digits: Measurements and Exact Numbers Read More »
Last time, we introduced what we mean by significant digits (or figures), and touched on why they are defined as they are. Here we will look at how significant digits and decimal places differ, and how they are affected by operations (primarily addition and multiplication). This is another aspect of why they are defined at …
(An archive question of the week) Last time I surveyed what we have said about the volume of liquid in various kinds of tanks. One more special case I ran across deserved more detailed attention, because it demonstrates in detail how to do the calculations without much knowledge of calculus. The problem Here is the …