One of the things that makes uncertainty difficult for members of the public to appreciate is that the significance of uncertainty is relative. Take, for example, the distance between Earth and the sun: 1.49597 x 10⁸ km, as measured at one point during the year. This seems relatively precise; after all, using six significant digits means I know the distance to an accuracy of one part in a million or so. However, if the next digit is uncertain, that means the uncertainty in knowing the precise Earth-sun distance is larger than the distance between New York and Chicago! Whether or not the quoted number is "precise" therefore depends on what I'm intending to do with it. If I care only about what minute the sun will rise tomorrow, then the number quoted here is fine. If I want to send a satellite to orbit just above the sun, however, then I would need to know distances more accurately.