Does your software give incorrect answers? This exercise requires a calculator with a standard deviation button or statistical software on a computer. The observations 20,001 20,002 20,003 have mean x = 20,002 and standard deviation s = 1.

Adding a 0 in the center of each number, the next set becomes 200,001 200,002 200,003 The standard deviation remains s = 1 as more 0s are added. Use your calculator or computer to calculate the standard deviation of these numbers, adding extra 0s until you get an incorrect answer.

How soon did you go wrong? This demonstrates that calculators and computers cannot handle an arbitrary number of digits correctly.