rounding to the nearest meter?

175.31686 meters rounds to 175 meters because 175.31686 is closer to 175 than it is to 176 meters. An easy way to do this is to see if the first digit after the decimal is 5 or higher, or lower than 5. If it is lower than five, it will be the original number in front of the decimal, in this case 175. If it is higher than 5, it will the the original number in front of the decimal plus 1.

So you have to determine where the ones place is, which is the number just to the left of the decimal point (In this example it’s the 5)

Once you’ve done that, look at the number to the right of the decimal place (The tenths place. In this example it’s the 3)

When you see the number to the right of it, you have to determine whether or not it is greater than or less than five. (In this example, it’s less than 5)

If that digit is five OR GREATER, then you round the digit up. So the five would be a six.

HOWEVER, the number is NOT fiver or greater, therefore, you do not round the digit up. Instead, you keep it the same. So the 5 in the ones place would stay as a 5.

Everything to the right of the rounded number (The ones place; 5) turns into a zero and is pretty much erased from the number now.

SO when you round 175.31686 meters to the nearest meter, you get 173 meters

Later on in like Chemistry, you get to Significant Figures and stuff, but you don’t have to worry about that now, I assume.

Okay, rounding to the nearest meter means rounding it to the nearest whole number. Just think of it that way. any decimals are only considered part of a meter, not an actual meter. So you would just round out all of the decimals, resulting in 175 Meters. Hope this helps 🙂

How many significant digits does your answer require?

How often do people/scientists report 175.31686 meters

Usually for meters, they would probably want at most 2 decimal places.

175.32 meters

or if only one decimal place rounded

175.3 meters

Or sense you want it to the nearest whole number meter

175 meters because .31686 is less than .5

I look at the tenths place and see a 3, which means I round down to 175 meters. Since the tenths place is less than 5, we round down.