Question

How many significant figures should be present in the answer of the following calculations?
(i) $\frac{0.02856\times 298.15\times 0.112}{0.5785}$
(ii) $5\times 5.364$
(iii) $0.0125+0.7864+0.0215$

Answer 1

(i) The answer of the calculation $\frac{0.02856\times 298.15\times 0.112}{0.5785}$ will contain 3 significant figures as 0.112 contains 3 significant figures which is the lowest number of significant figures.

(ii) The answer to the calculation $5\times 5.364$ will contain 4 significant figures as 5.364 contains 4 significant figures which are the lowest number of significant figures. Here, the exact figure 5 is not considered.

(iii) The answer to the calculation $0.0125+0.7864+0.0215$ will contain 4 significant figures as the result will be reported to 4 decimal places.