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The significand [1] (also coefficient, [1] sometimes argument, [2] or more ambiguously mantissa, [3] fraction, [4] [5] [nb 1] or characteristic [6] [3]) is the first (left) part of a number in scientific notation or related concepts in floating-point representation, consisting of its significant digits. For negative numbers, it does not include ...
Likewise 0.0123 can be rewritten as 1.23 × 10 −2. The part of the representation that contains the significant figures (1.30 or 1.23) is known as the significand or mantissa. The digits in the base and exponent (10 3 or 10 −2) are considered exact numbers so for these digits, significant figures are irrelevant.
The true significand of normal numbers includes 23 fraction bits to the right of the binary point and an implicit leading bit (to the left of the binary point) with value 1. Subnormal numbers and zeros (which are the floating-point numbers smaller in magnitude than the least positive normal number) are represented with the biased exponent value ...
Both formats break a number down into a sign bit s, an exponent q (between q min and q max), and a p-digit significand c (between 0 and 10 p −1). The value encoded is (−1) s ×10 q × c . In both formats the range of possible values is identical, but they differ in how the significand c is represented.
The displays of pocket calculators of the 1970s did not display an explicit symbol between significand and exponent; instead, one or more digits were left blank (e.g. 6.022 23, as seen in the HP-25), or a pair of smaller and slightly raised digits were reserved for the exponent (e.g. 6.022 23, as seen in the Commodore PR100).
Computable number: A real number whose digits can be computed by some algorithm. Period: A number which can be computed as the integral of some algebraic function over an algebraic domain. Definable number: A real number that can be defined uniquely using a first-order formula with one free variable in the language of set theory.
Like the binary floating-point formats, the number is divided into a sign, an exponent, and a significand. Unlike binary floating-point, numbers are not necessarily normalized; values with few significant digits have multiple possible representations: 1×10 2 =0.1×10 3 =0.01×10 4, etc. When the significand is zero, the exponent can be any ...
For example, consider a normalized floating-point number system with the base = and the significand digits are at most . Then f l ( 77 ) = 7.7 × 10 1 {\displaystyle fl(77)=7.7\times 10^{1}} and f l ( 88 ) = 8.8 × 10 1 {\displaystyle fl(88)=8.8\times 10^{1}} .