why is it standard practice in math to round up when 5 or greater.
In: Mathematics
When math is applied in real-world applications, the numbers involved are usually from some types of measurements or observations. It’s assumed that there was some loss of precision for these numbers. For example, if a temperature measurement is 6.32, it might actually be 6.32182374 but the instrument that measured it can only measure up to 2 decimal digits. Your question, I think, is why is a number like 6.5 always rounded up, when it’s in the exact middle between 6 and 7. It’s only in the exact middle if it’s **exactly** 6.5. Even 6.50000000000001 is closer to 7 than to 6. So because of this loss of precision on real-world numbers, it makes sense to always round up when a number ends with a 5 digit.
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