2 Sep
2006
2 Sep
'06
10:16 p.m.
Because it
*is* [floating point]. It differs from your other
example (which I cut) in that the point can float over a much wider
range, and it stores only some small (compared to the size of that
range) number of digits where the point floats to.
I know I'm splitting hairs,
but a cheap 4-banger calculator displays
numbers in floating point. A more expensive "scientific calculator"
displays in "scientific
notation".
...which is compact representation of floating-point values in base
ten, optimized for cases where the precision is small compared to the
distance the point floats from the exponent=0 position. Yes.
The term for what everyone calls "floating
point" is really
"scientific notation".
I don't think so.
Scientific notation, as I learnt the term, is rather specifically
mantissa-and-exponent notation *in base ten*.
In fact, outside of a rather narrow range, it's
displayed as such;
e.g. x.xxxxEyy.
Yes. So? It's also displayed in decimal, and `what everyone calls
"floating point"' is actually in binary. I don't think the display
representation is a useful argument.
Dig up any high-school science text where the notion
of scientific
notation is introduced--it's never called "floating point".
That's (a) to leverage the societal prestige of "science" and (b)
because high-school students do not generally have the mathematical
sophistication to understand what "floating point" means, whereas
"scientific notation" is immediately understandable to mean "a/the
notation used by science".
The distinction is small, but it's there.
Perhaps. But what you seem to think it is is not what I think it is.
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