The 16 bit float example fails to show that IEEE754 uses an implicitly set most significant bit on the fraction. The reason being that if the most significant b

The 16 bit float example fails to show that IEEE754 uses an implicitly set most significant bit on the fraction. The reason being that if the most significant bit were 0, then the fraction could be shifted left and the exponent lowered by 1 to compensate, until the msb is 1, a process called normalization.