What are the rules in determining number of significant figures?
Determining the Number of Significant Figures Here are a few rules to help you determine how many S.F. are in a given number, and which of the digits is the least significant one: Integers are exact and are considered to have an infinite number of S.F.; i.e. 2 is understood to be 2.0000000 Numerical constants such as p can have as many S.F. as you need, e.g. 3.14, 3.14159, 3.14159265 If the number is neither an integer nor a numerical constant, then the number of S.F. is equal to the number of digits excluding certain zeros that act only as “placeholders.” In a number with a decimal point, any leading zeros are placeholders and are not significant, but trailing zeros in this case are significant. In a number without a decimal point, trailing zeros might or might not be significant; you can only tell from the context! In any case, the least significant digit is then the significant digit that is farthest to the right. For our purposes, the accuracy of any quoted value can be assumed to
