Significant Figures

As most of us know, the use of significant figures is a scientific mean of basically keeping things organized. There are a few rules that you need to know in order to format your lab reports and homework properly. The goal of this blog is to simplify those rules for you.

1. Leading zeros are NEVER significant digits.

2. Trailing zeros are NEVER significant digits (unless they are measured).

3. Digits other than zero in a measurement are ALWAYS significant digits.

4. In multiplication and division, the number of significant figures is the SMALLEST of the number of significant figures in the inputs.

5. In addition and subtraction, the number of significant digits is the smallest number of decimal places in the input.

I would consider printing this out and taping it in the front cover of your book for easy reference.

So now its' your turn. How many significant digits are there in:

a. 11,000,000.0

b. 1.203190

c. 100.090

d. 0.00980870