Help With Precision in Math

Transcript

Hi, my name is Marija, and today I'm going to give you help with precision in math. Precision is the number of significant figures that are present in a number. So if for example you are given the number 145.372 and you are asked to write this number with a precision of 3, that means that you are only being asked for three significant digits. So I would be writing it as 145 so it's an estimate of the number above. The number as it is written, 145.372 is precise to six digits right, because I have one, two, three, four, five, six significant figures and what I mean by significant figures is any numbers that come after leading 0s and I don't include any 0s afterwards. So these two 0s would not be significant digits. So precision just means the amount of significant digits in a number and if it's less than the amount that's already there then you are rounding it to a specific place and that is precision in math.

Marija Kero graduated from the Pforzheimer Honors College at Pace University with a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and Adolescent Education.

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