Always seemed odd to me you can have a ruler that measures millimeters and get more significant digits measuring something to 9mm vs 12mm. The measurements are

Always seemed odd to me you can have a ruler that measures millimeters and get more significant digits measuring something to 9mm vs 12mm. The measurements are equally precise but one has more significant digits. Write it in hex and now they're the same, 9mm and Cmm. How does this make any sense? If I measure 123mm and divide it by 1.23 seconds I get to keep 3 sig figs but if it was 99mm I'd be forced to drop one? At least writing everything in scientific notation sidesteps this.