Significant Figures Physics Pdf Free
CLICK HERE ---> https://ssurll.com/2t1LCx
Significant figures (also known as the significant digits, precision or resolution) of a number in positional notation are digits in the number that are reliable and necessary to indicate the quantity of something.
If a number expressing the result of a measurement (e.g., length, pressure, volume, or mass) has more digits than the number of digits allowed by the measurement resolution, then only as many digits as allowed by the measurement resolution are reliable, and so only these can be significant figures.
For example, if a length measurement gives 114.8 mm while the smallest interval between marks on the ruler used in the measurement is 1 mm, then the first three digits (1, 1, and 4, showing 114 mm) are certain and so they are significant figures. Digits which are uncertain but reliable are also considered significant figures. In this example, the last digit (8, which adds 0.8 mm) is also considered a significant figure even though there is uncertainty in it.[1]
Another example is a volume measurement of 2.98 L with an uncertainty of ± 0.05 L. The actual volume is somewhere between 2.93 L and 3.03 L. Even when some of the digits are not certain, as long as they are reliable, they are considered significant because they indicate the actual volume within the acceptable degree of uncertainty. In this example the actual volume might be 2.94 L or might instead be 3.02 L. And so all three are significant figures.[2]
Of the significant figures in a number, the most significant is the digit with the highest exponent value (simply the left-most significant figure), and the least significant is the digit with the lowest exponent value (simply the right-most significant figure). For example, in the number "123", the "1" is the most significant figure as it counts hundreds (102), and "3" is the least significant figure as it counts ones (100).
Numbers are often rounded to avoid reporting insignificant figures. For example, it would create false precision to express a measurement as 12.34525 kg if the scale was only measured to the nearest gram. In this case, the significant figures are the first 5 digits from the left-most digit (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), and the number needs to be rounded to the significant figures so that it will be 12.345 kg as the reliable value. Numbers can also be rounded merely for simplicity rather than to indicate a precision of measurement, for example, in order to make the numbers faster to pronounce in news broadcasts.
Note that identifying the significant figures in a number requires knowing which digits are reliable (e.g., by knowing the measurement or reporting resolution with which the number is obtained or processed) since only reliable digits can be significant; e.g., 3 and 4 in 0.00234 g are not significant if the measurable smallest weight is 0.001 g.[4]
Rounding to significant figures is a more general-purpose technique than rounding to n digits, since it handles numbers of different scales in a uniform way. For example, the population of a city might only be known to the nearest thousand and be stated as 52,000, while the population of a country might only be known to the nearest million and be stated as 52,000,000. The former might be in error by hundreds, and the latter might be in error by hundreds of thousands, but both have two significant figures (5 and 2). This reflects the fact that the significance of the error is the same in both cases, relative to the size of the quantity being measured.
As an illustration, the decimal quantity 12.345 can be expressed with various numbers of significant figures or decimal places. If insufficient precision is available then the number is rounded in some manner to fit the available precision. The following table shows the results for various total precision at two rounding ways (N/A stands for Not Applicable).
As there are rules to determine the significant figures in directly measured quantities, there are also guidelines (not rules) to determine the significant figures in quantities calculated from these measured quantities.
For quantities created from measured quantities via multiplication and division, the calculated result should have as many significant figures as the least number of significant figures among the measured quantities used in the calculation.[13] For example,
with one, two, and one significant figures respectively. (2 here is assumed not an exact number.) For the first example, the first multiplication factor has four significant figures and the second has one significant figure. The factor with the fewest or least significant figures is the second one with only one, so the final calculated result should also have one significant figure.
For quantities created from measured quantities via addition and subtraction, the last significant figure position (e.g., hundreds, tens, ones, tenths, hundredths, and so forth) in the calculated result should be the same as the leftmost or largest digit position among the last significant figures of the measured quantities in the calculation. For example,
with the last significant figures in the ones place, tenths place, and ones place respectively. (2 here is assumed not an exact number.) For the first example, the first term has its last significant figure in the thousandths place and the second term has its last significant figure in the ones place. The leftmost or largest digit position among the last significant figures of these terms is the ones place, so the calculated result should also have its last significant figure in the ones place.
The rule to calculate significant figures for multiplication and division are not the same as the rule for addition and subtraction. For multiplication and division, only the total number of significant figures in each of the factors in the calculation matters; the digit position of the last significant figure in each factor is irrelevant. For addition and subtraction, only the digit position of the last significant figure in each of the terms in the calculation matters; the total number of significant figures in each term is irrelevant.[citation needed] However, greater accuracy will often be obtained if some non-significant digits are maintained in intermediate results which are used in subsequent calculations.[citation needed]
If a transcendental function f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} (e.g., the exponential function, the logarithm, and the trigonometric functions) is differentiable at its domain element x, then its number of significant figures (denoted as "significant figures of f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} ") is approximately related with the number of significant figures in x (denoted as "significant figures of x") by the formula
When performing multiple stage calculations, do not round intermediate stage calculation results; keep as many digits as is practical (at least one more digit than the rounding rule allows per stage) until the end of all the calculations to avoid cumulative rounding errors while tracking or recording the significant figures in each intermediate result. Then, round the final result, for example, to the fewest number of significant figures (for multiplication or division) or leftmost last significant digit position (for addition or subtraction) among the inputs in the final calculation.[15]
When estimating the proportion of individuals carrying some particular characteristic in a population, from a random sample of that population, the number of significant figures should not exceed the maximum precision allowed by that sample size.
Traditionally, in various technical fields, "accuracy" refers to the closeness of a given measurement to its true value; "precision" refers to the stability of that measurement when repeated many times. Thus, it is possible to be "precisely wrong". Hoping to reflect the way in which the term "accuracy" is actually used in the scientific community, there is a recent standard, ISO 5725, which keeps the same definition of precision but defines the term "trueness" as the closeness of a given measurement to its true value and uses the term "accuracy" as the combination of trueness and precision. (See the accuracy and precision article for a full discussion.) In either case, the number of significant figures roughly corresponds to precision, not to accuracy or the newer concept of trueness.
Computer representations of floating-point numbers use a form of rounding to significant figures (while usually not keeping track of how many), in general with binary numbers. The number of correct significant figures is closely related to the notion of relative error (which has the advantage of being a more accurate measure of precision, and is independent of the radix, also known as the base, of the number system used).
Significant figures are used to establish the number which is presented in the form of digits. These digits carry a meaningful representation of numbers. The term significant digits are also used often instead of figures. We can identify the number of significant digits by counting all the values starting from the 1st non-zero digit located on the left. For example, 12.45 has four significant digits.
The significant figures of a given number are those significant or important digits, which convey the meaning according to its accuracy. For example, 6.658 has four significant digits. These substantial figures provide precision to the numbers. They are also termed as significant digits.
I've found: $\frac{v^2}{r} = \frac{(4.0 \times 10^5\;\mathrm{m/s})^2}{3.0\;\mathrm{m}} \implies a_r = 5.333\ldots \times 10^{10}\mathrm{m/s^2}$. Since the quantity with smallest significant figures (s.f.) have only two s.f., I rounded the answer as $5.3\times 10^{10}\;\mathrm{m/s^2}$. In the back of the book, the answer is $5.3\mathbf{3}\times 10^{10}\;\mathrm{m/s^2}$. 2b1af7f3a8