Comment by ndriscoll
'10/3 = 3' is also false, and is something you put forward as true. Meanwhile, '10/3 ≈ 3' and '10/3 ≈ 3.0' are both equally true, as is '10/3 ≈ π' if you're in a pinch. Also true is that math is full of conventions, and it makes sense to use the conventions you feel are appropriate for what you're doing. Sometimes that might be significant figures, which I suppose you're alluding to. Other times, it might be propagation of uncertainty. Other times error tracking is not even relevant; you might just round the thing but also want to have all of your expressions be of the same type. For that matter, you may have 3: ℝ = 3.0: ℝ by definition. The other poster never gave any indication of whether or why some particular convention should apply.
Teachers not having the time to muse about such ideas and instead needing to package everything into a presentation appropriate for an entire room full of children is one of the more obvious failure modes of industrialized education.
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