Re: Round Function Philosophy

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On Jun 27, 12:57 pm, herr...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I heard [another instructor]
him say that you should always use the Round fuction in any formula
where any multiplication or division is taking place. I think that's
quite a broad statement [...]. But it does beg the question...is there
something to what he said?

First, let me say at the outset that I, too, believe that is an overly
broad statement to make, and I agree with all responses that suggest
that the use of rounding or not depends on the context.

(By the way, let's not forget that in addition to ROUND(), there is
ROUNDUP() and ROUNDDOWN(). It makes sense to force rounding in one
direction or the other in some contexts, including some financial
contexts. But I digress ....)

However, I might be able to offer some perspective for the
instructor's comment.

When my son was taking science in high school, I flipped through his
text. One of the first chapters dealt with the accuracy of numbers
arithmetically derived from measurements. I must admit that I am a
bit fuzzy on the details, but as I recall the text said that when
combining numbers, the result should be expressed with the same number
of decimal places as the least accurate operand. For example, if
something is measured to tenths (10.1) and something else is measured
to hundredths (9.01), the sum should be expressed to tenths (19.1, not
19.11).

I remember frowning a great deal when I read that. But I checked
other sources at the time and found similar rules.

"Go figure!" ;-)

.

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