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This decimal format can also represent any binary fraction a/2 m, such as 1/8 (0.125) or 17/32 (0.53125). More generally, a rational number a/b, with a and b relatively prime and b positive, can be exactly represented in binary fixed point only if b is a power of 2; and in decimal fixed point only if b has no prime factors other than 2 and/or 5.
A mathematical coincidence is said to occur when two expressions with no direct relationship show a near-equality which has no apparent theoretical explanation.. For example, there is a near-equality close to the round number 1000 between powers of 2 and powers of 10:
Decimals between 1 and 2: fixed interval 2 −23 (1+2 −23 is the next largest float after 1) Decimals between 2 and 4: fixed interval 2 −22; Decimals between 4 and 8: fixed interval 2 −21... Decimals between 2 n and 2 n+1: fixed interval 2 n-23... Decimals between 2 22 =4194304 and 2 23 =8388608: fixed interval 2 −1 =0.5
Graphs of y = b x for various bases b: base 10, base e, base 2, base 1 / 2 . Each curve passes through the point (0, 1) because any nonzero number raised to the power of 0 is 1. At x = 1, the value of y equals the base because any number raised to the power of 1 is the number itself.
Unit fractions can also be expressed using negative exponents, as in 2 −1, which represents 1/2, and 2 −2, which represents 1/(2 2) or 1/4. A dyadic fraction is a common fraction in which the denominator is a power of two , e.g. 1 / 8 = 1 / 2 3 .
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 ...
In mathematics, a dyadic rational or binary rational is a number that can be expressed as a fraction whose denominator is a power of two. For example, 1/2, 3/2, and 3/8 are dyadic rationals, but 1/3 is not. These numbers are important in computer science because they are the only ones with finite binary representations. Dyadic rationals also ...
Thus 4 000 000, which has a logarithm (in base 10) of 6.602, has 7 as its nearest order of magnitude, because "nearest" implies rounding rather than truncation. For a number written in scientific notation, this logarithmic rounding scale requires rounding up to the next power of ten when the multiplier is greater than the square root of ten ...