What is precision of a number representation?

[Ethan Furman]

On 07/11/2016 03:17 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:

> So, so far there is no explanation of why leading zeroes make a number
> more precise.

An example of what I mean:

174 with a precision of 3 tells us that the tenths place could be any of 
0-9, or, put another way, the actual number could be anywhere between 
174.0 to 174.9 (or maybe 173.5 to 174.5).  If we have 174 with four 
digits of precision, then the representation should be 174.0 and it's 
the hundreths we are unsure of.

So my question is: if we write 174 when could the thousands /ever/ be 
anything besides 0?

--
~Ethan~