What is 3,482 to two significant figures
Answers
3.5 or 3.5e+0 (significant figures: 2, decimals: 1)
Steps:
#1: 3.482 (the original number has 4 sig figs)
#2: 3.5 (rounded to 2 significant figures)
Significant carries the meaning of "important".
So 2 significant figure implies that we want to keep the 2 most important digits in the figure.
Identifying the 2 significant digits:
In 3482,
⇒ the digit 3 which stands for 3000 is the most significant digit
⇒ the digit 4 which stands for 400 is the next significant digit
⇒ Therefore these are the 2 digits we will keep.
Rounding:
In 3482, we have concluded that we will keep the "3000" and the "400", making the number 3400
Next, we look at the next significant digit to check for rounding.
Rounding rules:
If the digit is less than 5, we ignore
Else we add 1 to the significant figure.
In 3482,
we checked the digit 8. Since 8 is not less than 5, we add 1 to the the digit"4"
3482 ≈ 3500
Answer: 3500