In rec.aviation.student C J Campbell wrote:
One bad tendency I have noticed with a calculator is that calculators
usually display a level of precision, such as seconds or tenths of a
mile, that is pure fantasy. I teach students to round everything at
least to the nearest minute and mile. You could probably round
everything to five minutes and ten miles and not lose anything
significant.

One of the hazards of calculators, and of electronic computation in
general. Nobody understands the concept of "significant digits" any more.
Just last week, I saw somebody build a spreadsheet with single-digit
input, but triple-digit comparisons in the output. I had to explain that
there was no way that "4.89" and "5.12" were actually different results,
and that there was no reason to prefer one over the other based on those
calculations.

.... Alan
--
Alan Gerber
PP-ASEL
gerber AT panix DOT com