[College Math] Significant figures question

[u/Responsible-Gas3607]

This assignment is for my college biology class but I’m still going to categorize it as math.

I don’t have much, if any experience working with significant figures. I may have learned about it during one of my intro to biology classes in high school, but I’m not sure.

Originally, I thought the length of the tibia bone would have been 34.4, but every answer I have submitted ranging from 33-35 has been incorrect. There is hardly any information regarding significant figures in the instruction and information section of the assignment.

Any help would be appreciated.

Solved: Answer was 34.41

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[u/TinCapMalcontent]

If they want 2 digits after the decimal you would put 34.40 instead of 34.4

[u/llamadramalover]

Here’s a page about significant figures https://www.britannica.com/science/significant-figures

From this photo I can only guess that maybe you need to have 2 digits after the decimal point so instead of 34.4 you might need 34.40.

There’s some very specific rules about when zeros after a decimal point count as an sig fig and when they don’t so definitely review that link.

[u/Frederf220]

Normal science training is to report to the marked interval and then estimate tenths between marks. I see that as 34.42 personally.

[u/Dependent_Net_3548]

For future reference a value with correct significant figures includes all your "known" digits, plus one uncertain digit. The labelled ticks(33, 34, etc) are known, and the unlabelled ticks are also known(33.1, 33.2, etc), the precision in between is the uncertain digit, thus the ruler gives 4 significant figures.

Also if you have more problems with significant figures remember that multiplying/dividing two numbers produces a number with the least sig figs of one of the numbers you multiplied. Adding/subtracting two numbers leads to the sum having the least number of decimal places of the numbers you added/subtracted. These principles stack, so if you multiply, then add, then multiply, to calculate something you follow the rules in turn(keeping track of sig figs at each step). In general do not round or apply the final sig figs until the last step.