I’m confused as to how, when and why I’m supposed to use significant digits vs when to carry all the decimals my calculator spits out. This is for surveying/civil engineering related fields in particular. My professor has covered both topics extensively but didn’t do a very good job explaining when said rules apply.
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In chemistry, the rules of Sig Figs are as follows: when adding or subtracting you keep all available decimal places. When multiplying and dividing, your answer should have the same number of Sig figs as your term with the lowest number of Sig figs (ie 0.35*0.6385868538855 should only have two sig figs). Lastly, one should only express decimal places beyond the appropriate number of sig figs in the final answer, and not in intermediate steps along the way. Each intermediate step of your calculations should carry all decimals through until the final answer is reached, and only trim down sig figs at the end. This keeps the precision of the final answer within the precision tolerance of the measurement devices used.
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