CHEM 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Significand, Scientific Notation, Decimal Mark

• School: College of Charleston
• Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Course: CHEM 111
• Professor: Deavor

Document Summary

Do not affect the number of sigfigs in a calculation. All measured quantities have a number of uncertainty. Minimum number of digits required to express a value without a loss of accuracy. More sigfigs = greater precision of the result. Unless expressed otherwise, a measured quantity is assumed to be at least +/- 1 in the last digit. When counting sigfigs, we count from left to right, starting at the first non-zero digit and count through the last significant digit. Count the sure digits plus the doubtful digit. All the digits in the significand are significant of sigfigs don"t change. Indicate the position of a decimal point. When converting between fixed decimal, exponential, and scientific notation, the number. Leading zeroes (in front of all other digits) are never significant. Zeroes embedded between other digits are always significant. Zeroes at the end of a number where you see a decimal point are significant.