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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Please tell me you actually had that many digits of significant figures and weren't just copying down overly-specific figures from your calculator...
He most certainly didn't. Other than physical constants, very few measurements were ever taken to more than 15 significant figures. It's just not practical as no instrument will get 1m precision over a light year. A spacecraft travelling anywhere near that far will just get an order of magnitude closer and then recalculate with one more digit of precision.
You are exactly right, and I wasn't copy pasting I was writing it all down as part of pen-and-paper submitted answers. I don't have 1/5 of the energy for such trivial things anymore.
Prof here...it's always the latter.