What would 7000 be rounded to two significant figures?

Answer 1

When rounding 7000 to two significant figures, you would look at the first two non-zero digits from the left. In this case, the first two non-zero digits are 7 and 0. Since the digit following 0 is greater than 5, you would round up the 0 to 1. Therefore, 7000 rounded to two significant figures would be 7100.

Answer 2

7000 is a number with ambiguous zeroes. Written this way, we can't be sure whether or not the zeroes are significant. You have specified 2 sig figs, so we must use scientific notation.

Scientific notation specifies:

A nonzero digit (1-9) in the 'ones' place

A decimal for two or more sig figs

Every significant digit must be shown, including all significant zeroes

A factor of ten raised to a power to move the decimal to the correct place

In this case, the seven and a zero are significant.

7.0

We need to move the decimal three places to have an equivalent answer

7.0 * 103