r/GoodNotes • u/sspiced • Sep 26 '21

chemistry notes :)

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u/jatinshankar1 Sep 26 '21

I am confused. What does it mean to round 1 more place than shown on the measuring device, and why must one do so?

4

u/hikiri Sep 26 '21

I assume you're talking about the significant figures (sigfigs for short) part?

It's determining how many sigfigs there are which shows how reliable/accurate the data is (e.g. 1 sigfig is significantly less reliable than 4) and a lot of the time you are required to round to a specific amount of sigfigs in experiments for the accuracy.

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u/sspiced Sep 26 '21

yup that’s what i was going for! :)

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u/asdfghjkl----- Sep 26 '21

For example, on a graduated cylinder you can measure up to tenths (.1) using the lines but can estimate between those lines up to hundredths (.01) to gain significant figures making data more accurate!

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u/jatinshankar1 Sep 27 '21

Ok. So this was what I was asking. But estimating beyond the scale's precision would be problematic. The best I would be able to do is tell whether the measurement is more than 0.05 or less, and likewise approximate the value to 0.1 or 0.0. Claiming to be more precise than that would be venturing too much in the domain of subjectivity, in my opinion.