Significant figures

[Guideme]

Hi

I know this is a simple question but i get confused with significant figures so much.
If the question does not speify to how many significant figures how many significant figures do we put our answer in .

Furthermore, is 0.45 2 s.f.
is 0.0045 4 s.f or is it 2 s.f

sorry i am just confused because i also do physics which apparently has different rules on significant figures. :/

Thx in adv

[sweetiepi]

Hi

I know this is a simple question but i get confused with significant figures so much.
If the question does not speify to how many significant figures how many significant figures do we put our answer in .

Furthermore, is 0.45 2 s.f.
is 0.0045 4 s.f or is it 2 s.f

sorry i am just confused because i also do physics which apparently has different rules on significant figures. :/

Thx in adv

Generally, if it doesn't specify, I'd go with the lowest amount of sigfigs given within the data. (I.e. 400.0 (4sf) mol of CH4, or 0.23 (2sf) grams of H2O) ^_^

Furthermore 0.45 is considered 2sf, and 0.0045 is considered to also be 2sf (as the leading zeros don't count, but the trailing zeros do )

[Bri MT]

Hi

I know this is a simple question but i get confused with significant figures so much.
If the question does not speify to how many significant figures how many significant figures do we put our answer in .

Furthermore, is 0.45 2 s.f.
is 0.0045 4 s.f or is it 2 s.f

sorry i am just confused because i also do physics which apparently has different rules on significant figures. :/

Thx in adv

VCE physics doesn't tend to enforce significant figures (except in pracs) but the rules are the same.

Remember:
- All non-zero digits are a significant figure
- zeros surrounded by non-zeros are significant  (eg. 101 has 3 sig figs and 9002 has 4 sig figs)
- a zero which is only there to show where the decimal point is isn't significant ( 0.00213 has 3 sig figs and 0.0006150 has 4 sig figs). This can be confusing with values like 1000. Using scientific notation or metric prefixes removes ambiguity in these cases.  ( 1.000 km has 4 sig figs as does 1.000 *10^3 m however 1000 m may have only 1 sig fig)