2 Sep
2006
2 Sep
'06
9:39 p.m.
Scientific notation (where an exponent is kept
separately) on the
other hand, can express a much greater number of values because the
point is not restricted to +/-10 digits either side of the units'
position. So why do we persist in calling it "floating point"?
Because it *is*. 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.
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