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Similarly, any decimal fraction a/10 m, such as 1/100 or 37/1000, can be exactly represented in fixed point with a power-of-ten scaling factor 1/10 n with any n ≥ m. This decimal format can also represent any binary fraction a/2 m, such as 1/8 (0.125) or 17/32 (0.53125).
It is the extension to non-integer numbers (decimal fractions) of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. The way of denoting numbers in the decimal system is often referred to as decimal notation. [2] A decimal numeral (also often just decimal or, less correctly, decimal number), refers generally to the notation of a number in the decimal numeral ...
Most decimal fractions (or most fractions in general) cannot be represented exactly as a fraction with a denominator that is a power of two. For example, the simple decimal fraction 0.3 (3 ⁄ 10) might be represented as 5404319552844595 ⁄ 18014398509481984 (0.299999999999999988897769…). This inexactness causes many problems that are ...
The Q notation is a way to specify the parameters of a binary fixed point number format. For example, in Q notation, the number format denoted by Q8.8 means that the fixed point numbers in this format have 8 bits for the integer part and 8 bits for the fraction part.
Thus only 23 fraction bits of the significand appear in the memory format, but the total precision is 24 bits (equivalent to log 10 (2 24) ≈ 7.225 decimal digits) for normal values; subnormals have gracefully degrading precision down to 1 bit for the smallest non-zero value.
To approximate the greater range and precision of real numbers, we have to abandon signed integers and fixed-point numbers and go to a "floating-point" format. In the decimal system, we are familiar with floating-point numbers of the form (scientific notation): 1.1030402 × 10 5 = 1.1030402 × 100000 = 110304.02. or, more compactly: 1.1030402E5
6 1 2 1 1 −1 4 5 9. and would be written in modern notation as 6 1 / 4 , 1 1 / 5 , and 2 − 1 / 9 (i.e., 1 8 / 9 ). The horizontal fraction bar is first attested in the work of Al-Hassār (fl. 1200), [35] a Muslim mathematician from Fez, Morocco, who specialized in Islamic inheritance jurisprudence.
The base determines the fractions that can be represented; for instance, 1/5 cannot be represented exactly as a floating-point number using a binary base, but 1/5 can be represented exactly using a decimal base (0.2, or 2 × 10 −1).