Students: here is a new VIDEO that introduces a concept that you must ALWAYS employ when performing calculations in Chemistry.
Well-designed experiments take place in controlled conditions that account for variables, and which express their results in significant figures in order to handle the inevitable limitations to measurement that will occur.
When we do math in this course, we are NOT engaged in an abstract exercise in which the answer is simply a number for someone unknown variable, 'x'. Instead, we are attempting to measure real phenomena and make predictions about what these phenomena will produce in the real world.
In that real world, there are limits to the ACCURACY and the PRECISION of our measurements. Students must understand the difference between the related but distinct concepts! Students must understand that the limits require us to not express our results with an UNREALISTIC level of precision, that was NOT actually observed!
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