Jan 19th 2013, 6:51:44
What exactly is an absolute number?
All numbers in computers are represented either as an integer (as above), or as a floating point value.
A 4-byte floating point value has about 6 significant digits accuracy, with a mantissa. Example: 1.234567+08 is a floating point number which means 1.234567 * 10^8 or the number 123456700. The "+08" is the mantissa, and the range is -128 to 127 (8 bits) and the 1.234567 is the significand (24 bits).
A 8-byte (64-bit) floating point value however has roughly twice the significant digits (15 digits, 52 bits) and a mantissa of 12 bits. Such a number can represent integers accurate up to about 1,000,000,000,000,000 before losing precision.
All numbers in computers are represented either as an integer (as above), or as a floating point value.
A 4-byte floating point value has about 6 significant digits accuracy, with a mantissa. Example: 1.234567+08 is a floating point number which means 1.234567 * 10^8 or the number 123456700. The "+08" is the mantissa, and the range is -128 to 127 (8 bits) and the 1.234567 is the significand (24 bits).
A 8-byte (64-bit) floating point value however has roughly twice the significant digits (15 digits, 52 bits) and a mantissa of 12 bits. Such a number can represent integers accurate up to about 1,000,000,000,000,000 before losing precision.