Solving Significant Digit Problems with Varying Order of Magnitude

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
1 reply · 2K views
Irid
Messages
207
Reaction score
1
I have reasons to believe that my question asks to write the answer with 3 significant digits (i.e. the given numbers are with 3 digits). But there are several figures to be worked out, so I list them (for example):

3.45
3.89
7.90
...
10.23 or 10.2 (or even 10.20)?

The problem is that the order of magnitude of the answers varies and I don't know what to do: write 4 significant digits (although I should know only 3) or stick with only 3, but then the number digits after the decimal point is different.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
It should be 10.2 10.20 appears to imply that you measured down to 100th decimal place of accuracy. 10.23 is 4 sig fig.