Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What is 58.629 to one significant figure?
- Thread starter Intel Inside
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The Wikipedia article has the conventional explanation, and links to articles on Rounding, etc.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures
no they have a huge purpose in the real world. Big time in engineering.
Reason why is numbers past the point of what significant figures you have worthless and can not be trusted in any way shape or form. With out significant figures you end up with a fairly large amount of rounding error that can and will build up very quickly and really throw off your answer.
Yup, especially when you start talking about machining precision and tolerancing, both of which will be driven by cost, application, and tooling capabilities.
60 is one sig fig.
60. is two sig figs.
060 is one sig fig (leading zeros are never significant)
----------
50
Obvious you are not an engineer lol
----------
To me 54.9999999.... Rounds to 60 at 1 sig fig as 54.999999... ..is exactly the same as 55 mathematically
A vast majority of standards maintain that 54.999 rounds down to 50. It's when a number is EXACTLY half way when things get hazy.
4.999 is like standing on your 49 yard line of a football field. Ultimately, however you slice it, you are closer to your own end zone. No matter what happens, 4.999 is closer to 0 than to 10.
Actually I am; I have not ever once seen anyone give two sharts about sig figs in industry.
Not once. Not once have I ever seen someone take 54 of something and decide it's better/more accurate to round that off to 50.
Okay, I misunderstood the original intent, but 54.9999999... is improper and should be written as 55, which rounds to 60 in almost every standard. I thought you literally meant 54.999
----------
You don't work in Pharmaceuticals. That being said, usually we don't argue 1 sig fig. it's usually at least three.
Granted usually more precision is needed than 1 sig fig in practice
BUT.....
sorry if I doubt your claim that sig figs aren't important for engineering. I speak as an engineer myself and without sig figs, there would be big issues
This discussion is an extreme simplification, and usually computers make a great deal of rounding decision, but I wasn't honestly thinking "what do we need to round to determine the stroke time of a control valve".
----------
Exactly. Sig figs provide information regarding the accuracy of measurements. They penalize the user's application of inaccurate equipment. If I want to measure the distance my car travels in 5 minutes, it doesn't matter that I can measure time to 5 decimal places if my distance measurement only carries one significant figure.
The three elipses following the three nines is another way of stating an infinitely repeating series of 9s.
As dukebound stated, 54.999... rounds to 60.
Just a bit of math trolling.
