PHYSICS 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Significant Figures, Scientific Notation, Decimal Mark

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Physics 2 - lecture 1 - significant figures, units, word problems. Significant figures keep track of how precise a measured (or estimated) quantity is. Don"t count the zeros before the first non-zero digit. How many significant figures does 0. 00102 have: 1, 6, 7, 2, 3. E. g. measuring length with a ruler, you could get the length only with precision of half a millimeter. To give an answer with more precision would be misleading. By writing 0. 00120 you are asserting that the digit after 2 is zero. 0. 00120 is accurate to one more decimal point than 0. 0012. Number of significant figures in 0. 00120 is 3 while the number of significant figures in 0. 0012 is 2. A way to avoid this confusion is to use scientific notation. Scientific notation is written in base 10. 0. 0012 is written as 1. 2 x 10-3 when scientific notation is adopted. The digit before decimal point cannot be 0.

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