Simple practice questions to get accustomed to significant numbers and ensuring that numbers are not rounded too quickly. Attachments in PDF format.

The point of this questions is to practice the concept of precision and the number of significant
figure to quote. Questions are taken from the course book 'Physics with modern physics',
Richard Wolfson & J. M. Pasachoff, pp 18-20.

Question: "Machine epsilon" is a computer term describing the minimum quantity that can be
added to 1 to give a different number. If machine epsilon for a certain computer is 0.000001,
roughly how many significant figures does the computer carry in it's calculations ?

To see that it is important to carry more digits in intermediate calculations, determine ( 3) to
3

three significant figures in two ways : (a) find 3 and round to three significant figures, then
cube and again round. (b) find 3 to four significant figures, then cube and round to three
significant figures.