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[3] [4] The word mantissa was introduced by Henry Briggs. [5] For a positive number written in a conventional positional numeral system (such as binary or decimal), its fractional part hence corresponds to the digits appearing after the radix point, such as the decimal point in English. The result is a real number in the half-open interval [0, 1
Any such decimal fraction, i.e.: d n = 0 for n > N, may be converted to its equivalent infinite decimal expansion by replacing d N by d N − 1 and replacing all subsequent 0s by 9s (see 0.999...). In summary, every real number that is not a decimal fraction has a unique infinite decimal expansion.
To change 1 / 3 to a decimal, divide 1.000... by 3 (" 3 into 1.000... "), and stop when the desired accuracy is obtained, e.g., at 4 decimals with 0.3333. The fraction 1 / 4 can be written exactly with two decimal digits, while the fraction 1 / 3 cannot be written exactly as a
[6] [2] [7] In some specialized contexts, the word decimal is instead used for this purpose (such as in International Civil Aviation Organization-regulated air traffic control communications). In mathematics, the decimal separator is a type of radix point, a term that also applies to number systems with bases other than ten.
Fractions together with an integer are read as follows: 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 is "one and a half" 6 + 1 ⁄ 4 is "six and a quarter" 7 + 5 ⁄ 8 is "seven and five eighths" A space is placed to mark the boundary between the whole number and the fraction part unless superscripts and subscripts are used; for example: 9 1/2; 9 + 1 ⁄ 2 9 + 1 / 2
That is, fractions aren't difficult to compare if the numerator is 1 (e.g., 1 ⁄ 2 is larger than 1 ⁄ 3, which in turn is larger than 1 ⁄ 4). However, comparisons become more difficult when both numerators and denominators are mixed: 3 ⁄ 4 is larger than 5 ⁄ 7 , which in turn is larger than 2 ⁄ 3 , though this cannot be determined by ...
A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits or digits [a] in a word (the word size, word width, or word length) is an important characteristic of any specific processor design or computer architecture.