MeasurementinScienceSignificantFiguresandScientificNotation

Why?
All sciences involve observations sometimes qualitative and sometimes quantitative.
Quantitativeobservationsinvolvemeasurementinoneformoranother.Itmaybemeasurementof
a distance, a volume, a mass or any one of a range of other quantitative data. How the numbers
from a measurement are written is important in science as it gives information about the
instruments used to make the measurement hence it important to understand the concepts of
significantfiguresandscientificnotation.

SuccessCriteria
Recognisethatthenumberofsignificantfiguresindicatesthelevelofaccuracyoftheinstrument
usedtomakethemeasurement
Identifythenumberofsignificantfiguresinanumber
Writenumbersinscientificnotation

Resources
Textbook(Chapter2)

Information
Significantfigures
The accuracy of any measurement we make is limited by the instrument we use to make the
measurement or the physical constraints of the situation. When recording the measurement we
must do so in a way that tells a reader the level of accuracy (or, if you prefer, the degree of
uncertainty)intheinstrumentusedtomakethemeasurement.

Atthetopoftherulershownbelowthedivisionsareinincrementsofonemillimetre,mm.Thefirst
arrow indicates a position between 2.2 and 2.3. It is incorrect to record it as 2.2 mm or 2.3 mm
because we know it is longer than 2.2 mm and shorter than 2.3 mm. We estimate the second
decimalplacewemightestimatethepositiontobe2.22andwouldrecordthisas2.22mm.This
tells us the ruler has a level of accuracy to 2 decimal places the last digit is uncertain but we are
certainitislongerthan2.2mmandshorterthan2.3mm.Evenifthepositionweretobeexactlyon
one of the marks we must record 2 decimal places. For example, if the position was exactly at 6
(secondarrow)wewouldrecord6.00mmweneedtoincludethezerossoastoinformthereader
that a ruler capable of reading to 2 decimal places was used. The numbers we record in a
measurement are described as significant figures they are significant because they give
informationaboutthelevelofaccuracyofthetoolusedtomakethemeasurement.

Scientificnotation
Theverylargeorverysmallnumbersoftenusedinthesciencescanbedifficulttowriteinstandard
decimal notation. To overcome this problem numbers are frequently written using scientific
notation.Scientificnotationisbasedonpowersofthebasenumber10withnumberswritteninthe
followinggeneralform:

a10
b
whereaisrealnumberbetween0and10.

Forexamplethespeedoflightwhichis300000000ms
1

(threehundredmillionmetrespersecond)
ismoreconvenientlywrittenas

310
8
ms
1

Thenumber0.0000456writteninscientificnotationis4.5610
5
.

Thepowerof10(thevalueofbinthegeneralform)givesthenumberofplacesthedecimalpointis
movedandinwhichdirection.Ifthedecimalpointismovedtotheleftbispositive;movementto
therightmeansbisnegative.

Table1:Scientificnotationfornumbersincreasingbyfactorsof10from0.000001to
100000.

Number Scientificnotation Number Scientificnotation

0.000001 1x10
6
1 1x10
0
0.00001 1x10
5
10 1x10
1

0.0001 1x10
4
100 1x10
2

0.001 1x10
3
1000 1x10
3

0.01 1x10
2
10000 1x10
4

0.1 1x10
1
100000 1x10
5

Significantfiguresincalculations

UseChapter2ofyourtext(pp.2529)tounderstandhowtousesignificantfiguresincalculations.

KeyQuestions

Endofchapter2QuestionsandProblems4,6,8,10,30,32,40,46,48,50

Thefollowingwebsitecanalsoprovidepracticewithscientificnotation.

http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/scinote/