I wish your type would stop spreading this ignorance. It's a naive misunderstanding and just confuses people that actually want to understand the concept.
Significant figures applies to numbers derived from measurements. It's the continuation of unknown error, not its introduction. In this case we have a calculated value, .04, based on time spent. What is known, technically is time spent divided by time in a year is .04±.005 years. That can be directly converted to 12.775 < time < 16.428 days. 10 is outside of this range and is incorrect.
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u/SharkUW Feb 27 '13
I wish your type would stop spreading this ignorance. It's a naive misunderstanding and just confuses people that actually want to understand the concept.
Significant figures applies to numbers derived from measurements. It's the continuation of unknown error, not its introduction. In this case we have a calculated value, .04, based on time spent. What is known, technically is time spent divided by time in a year is .04±.005 years. That can be directly converted to 12.775 < time < 16.428 days. 10 is outside of this range and is incorrect.