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You ask your friend how much cash he has on him. Is it different if he says around $80 versus around $76? He sounds surer of his estimate at $76, right?
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A piece of mail weighs 14 g on your kitchen scale. You weigh the same piece of mail with a lab balance and get 14.46 g. Which scale gives the mass with greater certainty? The lab scale.
The higher the certainty of a measurement, the more accurate or precise it is. We usually use the words accuracy and precision interchangeably, but they have different meanings in the context of scientific measurements. Accuracy is how close a measurement is to the correct value while precision is how close the measurements are to each other.
The proper way of reporting a measured quantity is for the value to reflect the certainty of the measuring method or device. A lab scale which is capable of displaying two decimal places determines masses with greater certainty than a kitchen scale that does not show any decimal place. Another way of expressing the certainty of a value is the number is significant figures, or sig figs, for short. In the example above, $70 and $78 both have no decimal place, but $78 is more certain because it has more significant figures than $70.
Counting the significant figures in a number is one of the first topics covered in a Chemistry or Physics class. Many students can get stumped by sig figs, and worse, teachers dock off points for wrong sig figs in homework, exams and lab reports. You need to figure out the deal with sig figs as soon as possible, and we’re here to help!
Visit for more information sigfigcalculators
A piece of mail weighs 14 g on your kitchen scale. You weigh the same piece of mail with a lab balance and get 14.46 g. Which scale gives the mass with greater certainty? The lab scale.
The higher the certainty of a measurement, the more accurate or precise it is. We usually use the words accuracy and precision interchangeably, but they have different meanings in the context of scientific measurements. Accuracy is how close a measurement is to the correct value while precision is how close the measurements are to each other.
The proper way of reporting a measured quantity is for the value to reflect the certainty of the measuring method or device. A lab scale which is capable of displaying two decimal places determines masses with greater certainty than a kitchen scale that does not show any decimal place. Another way of expressing the certainty of a value is the number is significant figures, or sig figs, for short. In the example above, $70 and $78 both have no decimal place, but $78 is more certain because it has more significant figures than $70.
Counting the significant figures in a number is one of the first topics covered in a Chemistry or Physics class. Many students can get stumped by sig figs, and worse, teachers dock off points for wrong sig figs in homework, exams and lab reports. You need to figure out the deal with sig figs as soon as possible, and we’re here to help!