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Question 79 - Review - Chapter 1

Problem:

On a sertain moment the longest officially verified human live span was attained by the Japanees man Shigechiyo Izumi, who died in 1986 at the age of 120 years and 237 days.

Question:

Express his live in seconds?

How many sifnificant figgures are there in your anwer and why?

Solution:

One year is 365.24 days

One day is 24 60 60 seconds

In [1]:
# Calculations
years = 120
days = 237
total_days = 365.24 * years + days
total_seconds = total_days * 24 * 60 * 60
print(f'The man lived {total_seconds} sec')
The man lived 3807285120.000001 sec

As we do not know what time on his last day he passed away, so the uncertinity is one day or 24 60 60 sec

In [2]:
precision = 24 * 60 * 60
print(f'The uncertinity is {precision} sec')
The uncertinity is 86400 sec

So the number of significant figures is restricted to 5

In [3]:
print(f'The man lived {total_seconds:.4e} sec (scientific correct notation)')
The man lived 3.8073e+09 sec (scientific correct notation)