Don_Dickle@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world · 2 days agoWhy in America is .08 the legal limit for drunk driving? How come it's not an even 0.10? Who decided at what level being drunk starts? Then 4 beers of 12oz's is 0.08 why is it that small?message-squaremessage-square20fedilinkarrow-up135arrow-down110
arrow-up125arrow-down1message-squareWhy in America is .08 the legal limit for drunk driving? How come it's not an even 0.10? Who decided at what level being drunk starts? Then 4 beers of 12oz's is 0.08 why is it that small?Don_Dickle@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world · 2 days agomessage-square20fedilink
minus-squarehowrar@lemmy.calinkfedilinkarrow-up1·edit-21 day ago Why does even-ness matter? Because significant figures. 0.1 means you have a margin of error of ±0.05 (i.e. the true value is between 0.05 and 0.15). 0.08 means the margin of error is ±0.005 (i.e. the true value is between 0.075 and 0.085). OP’s question can be rephrased as “how did we obtain a value to this level of precision?”
minus-squarespongebue@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkarrow-up5·1 day agoI mean, that’s just an issue of notation. OP could have just as easily meant 0.10 but chopped off the trailing zero out of habit.
minus-squarehowrar@lemmy.calinkfedilinkarrow-up1·11 hours agoOP actually did write 0.10, but I think it’s pretty clear from context that they meant it with one sigfig.
Because significant figures.
0.1 means you have a margin of error of ±0.05 (i.e. the true value is between 0.05 and 0.15).
0.08 means the margin of error is ±0.005 (i.e. the true value is between 0.075 and 0.085).
OP’s question can be rephrased as “how did we obtain a value to this level of precision?”
I mean, that’s just an issue of notation. OP could have just as easily meant 0.10 but chopped off the trailing zero out of habit.
OP actually did write 0.10, but I think it’s pretty clear from context that they meant it with one sigfig.