Rounding of Numbers with Decimal Places

Date: 5/31/96 at 12:14:29
From: Joan Ching
Subject: Rounding up of numbers with decimal place

Dear Dr. Math,

May I ask a question about the rounding of numbers with decimal 
places? If a number, 12.4547, is rounded up to 2 decimal places, 
what is its value? 12.45 or 12.46? 

Someone told me that it should be 12.46. Is this correct?

Thank you very much!

    Joan

Date: 5/31/96 at 15:36:45
From: Doctor Byron
Subject: Re: Rounding up of numbers with decimal place

Generally, you are only concerned with the one decimal place 
immediately to the right of the one you are going to round to. If it 
is 5 or higher, you round up. Otherwise, you round down. So in your 
problem of rounding 12.4547 to two decimal places, look at the _third_ 
decimal place only to determine which way to round. Since it is a 4, 
you round down, and the number becomes:

     12.45


-Doctor Byron,  The Math Forum
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