13.3 Floating-point numbers, representation and manipulation

Question 1

Mantissa

Answer 1

the fractional part of a floating point number

Question 2

Exponent

Answer 2

the power of 2 that the mantissa (fractional part) is raised to in a floating-point number

Question 3

Binary floating-point number

Answer 3

binary number written in the form M × 2E (where M is the mantissa and E is the exponent)

Question 4

Normalisation (floating-point)

Answer 4

a method to improve the precision of binary floating-point numbers
positive numbers should be in the format 0.1 and negative numbers in the format 1.0.

Question 5

Overflow

Answer 5

the result of carrying out a calculation which produces a value too large for the computer’s allocated word size

Question 6

Underflow

Answer 6

the result of carrying out a calculation which produces a value too small for the computer’s allocated word size