Am 18.06.16 um 03:19 schrieb Steven D'Aprano:
If I tell you that some physical phenomenon [let's call it the speed of
light] is 299,999,999 m/s, how many significant digits would I be using?
What if I tell you that it's 300,000,001 m/s?
What if the figure to nine significant digits *actually is* three followed
by eight zeroes?
You can't read off the number of significant figures from a value
itself, it must be given as a side information. It is a common way to
indicate uncertainty estimes, however, by giving a number to as many
decimal places as there are significant digits, i.e. to indicate the
uncertainty as a power of ten. You need to use exponential notation to
express that clearly, in that case:
3*10^8 -> (3 +/- 0.5) * 10^8
3.0 *10^8 -> (3.0 +/- 0.05)*10^8
For more accurate error estimates, the second notation is used. Another
common way to express this is something like
3.42(3) which means 3.42 +/- 0.03
Note, however, that in current SI units the speed of light is known exactly:
c = 299,792,458 m/s
There is no error! This is possible because the unit metre is defined by
this value from the unit second.
Christian
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
