3 ms·
In other words, a floating point number consists of 2 numbers and a sign bit: 1. the digits 2. the exponent 3. a sign bit If you're familiar with scientific
by WalterBright 2y ago
In other words, a floating point number consists of 2 numbers and a sign bit:
1. the digits
2. the exponent
3. a sign bit
If you're familiar with scientific notation, yes, it's the same thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation
The rest is just the inevitable consequences of that.
- codedokode 2y agoI like "decimal point position" more than "exponent". Also, if I remember correctly, "mantissa" is the significand (the digits of the number). And by the way engineering notation (where exponent must divide by 3) is so much better. I hate converting things like 2.234·10¹¹ into billions in my head. And by the way (unrelated to floating point) mathematicians could make better names for things, for example instead of "numerator" and "denominator" they could use "upper" and "lower number". So much easier!
- WalterBright 2y agoI do get significand and mantissa mixed up. I solved that by just removing them!