Significant Digit Accountability For Exponentiation, Trigonometric, And Logarithmic Operations

Freshman engineering students are typically exposed to a number of elementary subjects during their first semester or quarter. One topic introduced to new engineering students is associated with the number of significant digits to be used for the final answer of a typical engineering problem. Elementary engineering texts often cover the topic as it relates to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. However, rules associated with exponentiation, trigonometric function use, and the use of logarithms are not included in these introductory texts, or in any other texts. The application of significant digit practices is proposed as it pertains to trigonometric function use as well as logarithmic and exponentiation operations.