Accuracy & Precision

Accuracy: Precision:
◦ How close you are to the ◦ How finely tuned your
actual value measurements are or how
◦ Depends on the person close they can be to each
measuring other
◦ Depends on the
measuring tool
◦ Determined by the
number of significant
digits
Accuracy: the result is close to the true
value .
5.1 ,4.9,5.3,5.2 (the true value is 5 )

Precision: the results are close to each

other but not to the true value .
3.2,3,3.3,2.8 (the true value is 5 )
Comment on the following data during
measuring the volume of a quantity of liquid
by using different tools , if they are accurate
and precision or not . knowing that that the
volume is 15 ml

a) 11, 11.2,10.8,11.1
b) 15.1,14.9,14.8,15.2
c) 11.5,22,9.2,6.5
d) 15.5.14.1,16.2,14.9
The rules for identifying significant figures when
writing or interpreting numbers are as follows:

All non-zero digits are considered significant.

Example: 91 have two significant figures (9 and 1),
123.45 has five significant figures (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5).

Zeros appearing between two non-zero digits are

significant.
Example: 101.1203 have seven significant figures: 1, 0, 1,
1, 2, 0 and 3.

Leading zeros are not significant.

Example: 0.00052 has two significant figures : 5 and 2.
Trailing zeros in a number containing a decimal point
are significant.
Example: 12.2300 have six significant figures: 1, 2, 2, 3, 0
and 0.
The number 0.000122300 still has only six significant
figures (the zeros before the 1 are not significant). In
addition, 120.00 have five significant figures since it has
three trailing zeros.

A decimal point may be placed after the number;

Example: "100." indicates specifically that three
significant figures, bu100 only has only one significant
number