What are rules in in fundamental operation in significant figures?

Answer 1

The rules governing fundamental operations involving significant figures are:

In addition and subtraction, identify first the s.f. in the decimal point of each given measurement. second, add or subtract(depends on the operation given) the given measurement and finally, your answer must have the least decimal point as the least accurate given measurement.

For example: 2.51 + 3.98000

The given 2.51 contains 2 decimal place while 3.98000 contains 5 decimal place so your answer must only have the less decimal point as the given. Your answer here is 6.49 not 6.49000.

In multiplication and division, identify first the number of significant figures, then do the given operation if it is multiplication or division. your answer must have the least accurate measurement.

for example: 2.89x4.987 is 14.41243. since the least number of the significant figure in my example is 2.94 which contains 3 significant figures. Therefore, your answer must have the same no. of the significant figure. Round off your answer the answer in my example will become 14.4 only

remember:

all non-zero digits are significant (1-9)

all leading zeros- are zeros before the non-zero digit is not significant

all sandwich zeros these are zeros between non-zero digits are significant

all trailing or final zeros - zeros after the non-zero digit are not significant if it is in the left side of the decimal point because it only indicates or used as placeholders only but if the trailing zeros are in the right side of the decimal point and is written after a non-zero digit it is considered as significant