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Measurements: Significant Figures and Zero - Tyler Dewitt

Added Aug 28, 2017 •

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zeros are they significant or not well the answer is that it depends there are few rules that tell us when we can consider zero to be significant and when we can't  let's go through them right now Susan first 1-0 sandwich between nonzero digits are always again what is this means let's say we have a number like 3091 okay we've already learned three the nine in the one or all significant and since the zero is sandwich between them it to is significant so therefore significant figures in this number how about a number like 80 2000  24 again 8 to 2 and 4 or all significant because they're non-zero numbers and since this Pro is sandwich between them it is also significant we have five total significant figures in this number  nope it doesn't just have to be one and doesn't have to be in just one place okay so we can have a number like 100 9003 again 1 9 and 3 are significant and since these zeros are sandwiched between them they are all significant to so they're a total of 6 number of zeros doesn't matter groups of zeros doesn't matter any other thing it doesn't matter is decimal points okay so we can have 5.00 603 something like that and just as long as we have these significant figures and the zeros are in between them they're all going to be number here is going to have six significant figures that's our first rule is there a sandwich between nonzero digits are always seeking what's my next turn this is here that zeros that come before all nonzero digits are never significant okay so an example this would be 0.0009 one Audi Zeros here come before the nonzero digits and obviously want to say before I mean to the left so these guys are significant come before them we don't have to worry about them three significant figures total in this number another example could be 0.013 these guys are all significant but the zeros coming before them or to the left they don't matter they're not significant again only 3 is receive a significant figures problems before it doesn't matter how many you have right so I can be 0.00000000 6 - and again these guys are significant but none of the zeros that come before them or to the left are significant we don't have to worry about and this number only has two significant digits the six and the two okay so that was happens when we have zeros that come before or to the left of a number  zero's that come after or to the right of non-zero just get a little bit trickier here are three examples all of them have a different number of significant figures  or I should say determine the significant figures in a different  83000 which looks identical except number to put a decimal at the end of that lets say 83.000 they all have one eight one three and three zeros but we apply different rules to each of them for the significant figures if we have zeros that come after nonzero number and there is no decimal place  in that number the zeros are not significant rates which gives us to Total here the other three zeros are not significant okay here there wasn't for the zeros ones you can ask it again but with a decimal point of the end means the zeros that come to play the Nelons your digits arsenic okay so that means it all five of these are going to be significant our number has five significant figures the only difference is this decimal point right here here it's not here zeros that come to the right of non-zero figures are only significant if there's a desk 0-0-0-0 coming to the right we ask her question is there a decimal point of the number yes there is so in this case all three of these guys after the decimal point are significant  again five significant figures in this number okay let's let's look at a couple more examples this okay let's say we have 4530 2100 there's some zeros to the right of these non-zero digit so we ask ourselves is there a decimal place in the number no there's no and since there's not it means that these zeros to the right of the nonzero digits are not significant 1 2 3 4 5 is the correct number configures here  let's look at 789 .000 again zeros to the right non zero digits is there a decimal place there is which means that these right hand zeroes become Cigna 6 total significant figures here let's look at  90090 Thousand significant figure one two three four zeros to the right but there is no decimal point in this number so that means that none of these ears are significant and there is only one significant figure here 200 with a decimal place after it  significant zeros to the right of it there is a decimal point so all three of them including the zeros are going to be significantly let's do 50.000 Zero's to the right and since there's a decimal point all of these arrows are significant so we have five total okay so all boils down to if there are zeros coming to the right of nonsignificant of non-zero digit all boils down to is there a decimal point if there's a decimal point in the number 0 is to the right or significant if there is no decimal point of number zeros to the right not significant I think the best way to learn this stuff is to go through a whole bunch of practice problems all right see whole bunch of examples that's we're going to do right now you know if you've already got this I'm going through a couple examples turn it off move on to the next video there's no need to to watch me do all these if you're having trouble though I think that will do enough concert by the time this is over you'll have a really really good sense of Windsor's or significant in women

Uploaded by Laura Houston.

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Measurements: Significant Figures and Zero - Tyler Dewitt

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