Questions: A chemist needs to know the mass of a sample of potassium sulfate to 2 significant digits. He puts the sample on a digital scale. This is what the scale shows: 0 0 9 9 3 If this measurement is precise enough for the chemist, round it to 2 significant digits. Otherwise, press the "No solution" button.

A chemist needs to know the mass of a sample of potassium sulfate to 2 significant digits. He puts the sample on a digital scale. This is what the scale shows:
0
0
9
9
3
If this measurement is precise enough for the chemist, round it to 2 significant digits. Otherwise, press the "No solution" button.

Transcript text: A chemist needs to know the mass of a sample of potassium sulfate to 2 significant digits. He puts the sample on a digital scale. This is what the scale shows: 0 0 9 9 3 If this measurement is precise enough for the chemist, round it to 2 significant digits. Otherwise, press the "No solution" button.

Solution

Solution Steps

Step 1: Understanding the Measurement

The digital scale shows the measurement as 0.0993. This is a four-digit number, and we need to round it to two significant digits.

Step 2: Rounding to Two Significant Digits

To round 0.0993 to two significant digits, we identify the first two significant digits. The first significant digit is '9', and the second is also '9'. The digit following these is '3', which is less than 5, so we do not round up.