Читать книгу Physics I For Dummies - Steven Holzner - Страница 37

Physicists don’t always rely on significant digits when recording measurements. Sometimes, you see measurements that use plus-or-minus signs to indicate possible error in measurement, as in the following:

The part (0.05 meters in the preceding example) is the physicist’s estimate of the possible error in the measurement, so the physicist is saying that the actual value is between (that is, 5.41) meters and (that is, 5.31 meters), inclusive. Note that the possible error isn’t the amount your measurement differs from the “right” answer; it’s an indication of how precisely your apparatus can measure — in other words, how reliable your results are as a measurement.