Significant figures

How do we decide how many decimal places we use or to what unit we should round?
One way is to look at significant figures.

The first significant figure of a number is the first digit which is not zero. Hence the
first significant figure of 20,499 is 2 and the first significant figure of 0.0020499 is 2.

The second significant figure of a number is the digit after the first significant figure.
This is true even if the digit is zero. Hence the second significant figure of 20,499 is 0,
as is the second significant figure of 0.0020499.

The third significant figure of a number is the digit after the second significant figure.
This is true even if the digit is zero, and so on. Hence the third significant figure of
20,499 is 4 and the fourth is 9, as are the third and fourth significant figures of
0.0020499.

We round a number to three significant figures in the same way that we would round
to three decimal places. We count from the first non-zero digit for three digits. We
then round the last digit. We fill in any remaining places to the right of the decimal
point with zeros. This is because we need them to hold the correct place value for the
significant digits.

For example, 20,499 to three signifcant figures is 20,500. We round up because the
first figure we cut off is 9. 0.0020499 to three significant figures is 0.00205. We do
not put any extra zeros in to the right after the decimal point. This is because we do
not need them to hold the correct place value for the significant digits.

If the last significant digit of a number is 0, we include this. For example, 0.0020499
to two significant figures is 0.0020. The first significant digit is 2, the second
significant digit is 0. The next digit is 4, so we round down.

TRY: Significant figures

Give the following numbers to three significant figures:

654.389
65.4389
654,389
56.7688
0.03542210
0.0041032
45.989