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I've learned in school that the "number of decimal places" in a number refers to how many digits are after the decimal point.

For example, 2.5 and 100.2 have 1 decimal place, and 0.234 has 3.

But what about numbers like 56. and 45.0? Do numbers like that have 0 or 1 decimal places?

(Also, please correct me if I'm misunderstanding decimal places in my question)

Christopher Miller
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  • Zero, for consistency with 2.5 and 100.2. I have never seen the notation of ending a whole number with a decimal point, however, I would just write 56 (or 56.0 to 1 d.p.) – DanLewis3264 Sep 11 '20 at 18:31
  • Which is the whole point - numbers can be written to whichever precision you care. 56 = 56.000 (unless you're programming and consider them as different data types), although the first is written to the nearest whole number (0 dp if you will), the second to 3 d.p. – DanLewis3264 Sep 11 '20 at 18:32
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    Tags should be changed, this question is not about number theory. –  Sep 11 '20 at 18:38

1 Answers1

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The "number of decimal places" is not a property of the number itself, but about how it is written. So $1.$ has zero d.p. and $1.0$ has one, though they are numerically equivalent.

Parcly Taxel
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