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Significant Figures and Column Formulas
Significant Figures and Column Formulas

How does Pivot Interactives handle significant figures with column formulas?

Trevor Register avatar
Written by Trevor Register
Updated over a week ago

Our column formulas do not preserve significant figures. We believe that instructors should have the option to expect students to know how to propagate significant figures throughout one or more calculations, so we have specifically chosen not to have our data table do this automatically.

For example, looking at the data table below, when the velocity is calculated using a column formula, the significant figures are not preserved.

Correct significant figures can be manually set in the Velocity column. Click the three dots opposite the name of the column, then Column Settings. You can set the number of significant figures that should be displayed here.

Now the correct number of significant figures appears in the Velocity column.

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