103 results for: floating-point

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

float·ing-point (flō'tĭng-point')
adj. Of, relating to, or being a method of writing numeric quantities with a mantissa representing the value of the digits and a characteristic indicating the power of the number base, such as 3 × 10^-5.

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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floating-point

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The American Heritage Science Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

floating-point Audio Help (flō'tĭng-point') Pronunciation Key
Relating to a method of representing numerical quantities that uses two sets of integers, a mantissa and a characteristic, in which the value of the number is understood to be equal to the mantissa multiplied by a base (often 10) raised to the power of the characteristic. Scientific notation is one means of displaying floating-point numbers.

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing - Cite This Source - Share This

floating-point programming, mathematics
A number representation consisting of a mantissa, M, an exponent, E, and a radix (or "base"). The number represented is M*R^E where R is the radix.
In science and engineering, exponential notation or scientific notation uses a radix of ten so, for example, the number 93,000,000 might be written 9.3 x 10^7 (where ^7 is superscript 7).
In computer hardware, floating point numbers are usually represented with a radix of two since the mantissa and exponent are stored in binary, though many different representations could be used. The IEEE specify a standard representation which is used by many hardware floating-point systems. Non-zero numbers are normalised so that the binary point is immediately before the most significant bit of the mantissa. Since the number is non-zero, this bit must be a one so it need not be stored. A fixed "bias" is added to the exponent so that positive and negative exponents can be represented without a sign bit. Finally, extreme values of exponent (all zeros and all ones) are used to represent special numbers like zero and positive and negative infinity.
See also floating-point accelerator, floating-point unit.
Opposite: fixed-point.
(2006-11-09)

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