Question

A bowling ball is pushed with a force of 22.0 N and accelerates at 5.5 m/s2. What is the mass of the bowling ball? Ik the answer is 4.0, but I got it wrong for 4.00. I based the significant numbers off the 22.0 but apparently it's the 5.5. I always get it wrong when the question involves two numbers with different amounts of significant numbers (sometimes I use the smaller one but it wanted the bigger). How do I know when to use more or less significant numbers?

Answer 1

Explanation:

You should always use the least number of significant figures. The exception is exact numbers or constants.

For example, there are 60 minutes in an hour. Even though this number has one significant figure, it is an exact number. So 15 minutes converted to hours would be 0.25 hr.