Science Memes

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Percentages (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Another lesson I the importance of significant digits, a concept I've had to remind many a young (and sometimes an old) engineer about. An interesting idea along similar lines is that 2 + 2 can equal 5 for significantly large values of 2.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What do you mean by significantly large

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

Depending on how you're rounding, I assume. Standard rounding to whole digits states that 2.4 will round to 2 but 4.8 will round to 5. So 2.4+2.4=4.8 can be reasonably simplified to 2+2=5.

This is part of why it's important to know what your significant digits are, because in this case the tenths digit is a bit load bearing. But, as an example, 2.43 the 3 in the hundredths digit has no bearing on our result and can be rounded or truncated.