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Calculations with significant figures

Posted 2 years ago

Dear all,

being a humble user of this amazing software, I cannot work out a matter that, surely, it is peanuts for you guys: calculations with significant figures.
Suppose I am performing a calculation where different values and magnitudes are plugged into a formula (with different sig. fig.). How can I instruct Mathematica to return the correct value of the calculation considering the correct number of sig. fig. ?

For example, 2 / 0.034 = 58.82352941176471.... but since one of the arguments has 1 sig. fig., the scientific result would be 60.

Mind: I do not talk about a simple calculation as the above. Consider a wider expression with many different quantities (all expressed in different sig. fig.).

How can I work this out?

Many thanks to you all. Mauro B.

2 Replies
Posted 2 years ago

Hi Mauro,

Unless explicitly specified, WL assumes MachinePrecision for non-exact numerical values.

Using specific precision

2`1 / 0.034`3
(* 6.*10^1 *)

Take a look at this and this.

POSTED BY: Rohit Namjoshi
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