How many significant figures should be used for means and standard deviations?

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Hervé This vo Kientza1,2

1. Université Paris Saclay, INRAe, AgroParisTech, UMR SayFood 0782, 91120 Palaiseau, France
2. Group of Molecular Gastronomy, INRAE-AgroParisTech International Centre for Molecular and Physical Gastronomy, 22 place de l’agronomie, 91120, Palaiseau, France.

* Correspondence: herve.this@inrae.fr

Abstract
This course is given to students attending the Educational Module “Physical Chemistry for Food Structuring” of the Master’s Program “Engineering – Products - Processes”, in AgroParisTech (France). The example of culinary recipes is used to study the question of the precision of the mean and of the standard deviation of a variable for a population and for a subset of a population (used for estimating the characteristics of the population). After examining illustrations of mathematical results concerning these two quantities, the internationally accepted rules for propagating uncertainties are recalled and applied to calculate the number of significant figures in the expression of experimental means and standard deviations.

Keywords
mean, standard deviation, significant figures, population, estimation

Edited by:
Dr. Róisín Burke, School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology, TU Dublin, Ireland.

Reviewers:
1. Dr. Seán Lacey, Department of Mathematics, Munster Technological University, Bishopstown, Cork, Ireland.
2. Anonymous

Received:
31 February 2024

Accepted :
24 Septembre 2024

Published:
31 October 2024.

Section:
This article was published in the “Courses” section (Part II: Molecular Gastronomy and Education) of the International Journal of Molecular and Physical Gastronomy.

Citation:
This vo Kientza H. 2024. How many significant figures should be used for means and standard deviations?, International Journal of Molecular and Physical Gastronomy, 10(1), 8, 1-15. doi: 10.17180/ijmpg-2024-art08