> If you for example treat a 64-bit unsigned integer as a measure of length/distance in nanometers then you can measure distances up to 18.446.744 kilometers.

> If you for example treat a 64-bit unsigned integer as a measure of length/distance in nanometers then you can measure distances up to 18.446.744 kilometers. If your calculations require you be able to square any of that unit, the largest you can go without running out of range in your intermediate calculations is cut to ... 4 meters. God help you if you need a higher power than 2. Same deal for taking the product of several numbers for an area or volume. Working in fixed point has its benefits and it has its costs. Not so unlike manual memory management, but automatic memory management doesn't benefit so much from amazing hardware acceleration that you miss out on with manual management.