Significant Figures

[Guest]

What is meaning of Significant Figures ?

Thanks in advance

[adamsmith]

Significant figures are defined as digits in numbers which are important to attach a required precision on the number.
Significant figures are also known as significant digits.
http://math.tutorcircle.com/number-sense/significant-figures.html

[Elaine34]

The significant figures of a number are those digits that carry meaning contributing to its precision. This includes all digits except:
- all leading zeroes
- trailing zeroes when they are merely placeholders to indicate the scale of the number
- spurious digits introduced, for example, by calculations carried out to greater precision than that of the original data.

[leesajohnson]

The digits of a number that is used to express it to the required degree of accuracy, starting from the first non-zero digit.

[ten2match]

What you need to know in order to Identify significant figures with concise rules
- All non-zero digits are significant.
- Zeros between non-zero digits are significant.
- Leading zeros are never significant.
- In a number with a decimal point, trailing zeros, those to the right of the last non-zero digit, are significant.
- In a number without a decimal point, trailing zeros may or may not be significant.
Sometimes more information is required for clarifing the significance of trailing zeros - additional graphical symbols or details about the errors.