Share:
Glossary Math & Statistics

Significant figures

Significant figures are the digits in a number that carry meaning about its precision, starting from the first non-zero digit.

Last reviewed:

AdSense Placeholder
Slot: header_reference_page

In more detail

0.00340 has three significant figures; 1200 may have two to four depending on whether the zeros are measured. Report a result with no more significant figures than your least precise input.

Try these tools

Significant Figures Calculator

Count the significant figures in any number and round to a chosen number of sig figs.

Rounding Calculator

A free online rounding calculator that rounds any number to a chosen number of decimal places or to the nearest ten, hundred, or thousand.

See also

  • Glossary Scientific notation
    Scientific notation writes a number as a coefficient between 1 and 10 times a power of ten.
  • Glossary Percent error
    Percent error compares a measured value with the true value as a percentage: `|measured − true| / |true| × 100`.
Back to Glossary
AdSense Placeholder
Slot: footer_leaderboard