I think this explanation still makes it harder than it needs to be. Just imagine what a "floating point" number would mean in decimal: you get (say) 5 adjacent

I think this explanation still makes it harder than it needs to be. Just imagine what a "floating point" number would mean in decimal: you get (say) 5 adjacent digits to play with, and you get to choose where you put the decimal place, within a limited range. So you can represent 12345000 or 12.345 or 0.00012345. But 12345600 rounds to 12346000, 12.3456 rounds to 12.346, and 0.000123456 rounds to 0.00012346.