Floating Point Numbers

Question 1

What is the mantissa and exponent of a floating point number?

Answer 1

The number stored is the mantissa multiplied by the magnitude specified by the exponent

(ans = mantissa x 2^exponent)

Question 2

How do you check if a floating point number is normalised?

Answer 2

The first two bits of the mantissa should be opposites

Question 3

How is a mantissa in a floating point number formatted?

Answer 3

In twos complement, with one bit to the left of the decimal point