Significant Figures and Scientific Notation semrev

Front

What are significant figures?

Back

Significant figures are the digits in a number that contribute to its precision. This includes all non-zero digits, any zeros between significant digits, and trailing zeros in the decimal portion.

Front

How do you determine the number of significant figures in a measurement?

Back

Count all non-zero digits, any zeros between them, and trailing zeros in a decimal number. Leading zeros are not counted.

Front

What is scientific notation?

Back

Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form. It is written as a product of a number between 1 and 10 and a power of 10.

Front

Convert 4500 to scientific notation.

Back

4.5 x 10^3

Front

Convert 0.00056 to scientific notation.

Back

5.6 x 10^-4

Front

What is the purpose of using significant figures in calculations?

Back

Significant figures are used to indicate the precision of measurements and to ensure that calculations do not imply greater accuracy than the measurements themselves.

Front

How do you perform addition and subtraction with significant figures?

Back

The result should be rounded to the least number of decimal places of any number in the operation.

Front

How do you perform multiplication and division with significant figures?

Back

The result should be rounded to the least number of significant figures of any number in the operation.

Front

What is the difference between a scalar and a vector quantity?

Back

A scalar quantity has only magnitude (e.g., speed), while a vector quantity has both magnitude and direction (e.g., velocity).

Front

What is displacement?

Back

Displacement is the shortest distance from the initial to the final position of an object, along with the direction.