- #1
Jessehk
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I apologize in advance if this topic does not belong in the section of the forum -- it was the closest match I could find.
I am a grade 10 high school student (16 years old), and I was having a bit of a discussion with my science teacher (who was previously a chemical engineer).
I respect his knowledge, and I am sure that he knows exactly what he is talking about (I am not in the habit of questioning teachers), but he is a new teacher, and perhaps he is not doing things the standard ways.
We were looking at significant digits for use in simple Physics equations,
such as [tex]a = \frac{\Delta v}{ \Delta t}[/tex] .
In our textbook, it states that numbers such as 1000 have 1 sig fig, while he says that it has 5, and to represent 1000 as 1 sig fig, one could write [tex]1_{000}[/tex].
I looked around a bit, and found that the amount of sig figs in numbers with trailing 0's is debatable. I was wondering what the popular opinion of the members here is regarding this matter.
Thanks :)
I am a grade 10 high school student (16 years old), and I was having a bit of a discussion with my science teacher (who was previously a chemical engineer).
I respect his knowledge, and I am sure that he knows exactly what he is talking about (I am not in the habit of questioning teachers), but he is a new teacher, and perhaps he is not doing things the standard ways.
We were looking at significant digits for use in simple Physics equations,
such as [tex]a = \frac{\Delta v}{ \Delta t}[/tex] .
In our textbook, it states that numbers such as 1000 have 1 sig fig, while he says that it has 5, and to represent 1000 as 1 sig fig, one could write [tex]1_{000}[/tex].
I looked around a bit, and found that the amount of sig figs in numbers with trailing 0's is debatable. I was wondering what the popular opinion of the members here is regarding this matter.
Thanks :)
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