floating-point number
- noun
- /ˈfloʊtɪŋ pɔɪnt ˈnʌmbər/
- Specialized
:
número de punto flotante
- To analyze the data, we converted the results into a floating-point number for precision.
- IEEE floating-point number
- binary floating-point number
But if you think about floating point number, real numbers, we want to find where's, where's the bottom, where's the lowest point?
- But if you think about floating point number, real numbers, we want to find where's, where's the bottom, where's the lowest point?
Examples
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So we've been looking the last couple of lectures at floating point numbers and integers.
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The basic method for converting a floating-point number from one base to another is through a sequence of transformations that leave the value intact.
Academic text (1999) -
So we represent a floating point number as a pair of a mantissa and an exponent.
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Databases may have fields containing IEEE floating-point numbers.
Academic text (1999) -
Support math operations on IEEE floating-point numbers stored in databases.
Academic text (1999) -
The Java language always uses round-to-nearest, except when converting floating-point numbers to integers, in which case it uses round-to-zero.
Academic text (1999) -
A denormalized floating-point number is a tiny number whose exponent is smaller than the smallest representable exponent.
Academic text (1999) -
To illustrate the comparative symbolic technique, see Figure 6, where the sequential program reads n floating-point numbers from a file, sums the positive elements, and returns the result.
Academic text (2011) -
The program can accurately display a floating-point number with up to six decimal places.
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In computer graphics, calculations often require a floating-point number to represent colors.
Synonyms
1
3.9
A computer data type for numbers with decimals, often approximate
Surface Forms
Morphology
floating-point + number
The term is compositionally a kind of 'number' described by 'floating-point', so a learner who knows 'floating' and 'point' can infer it is a type of number related to a moving/decimal point. However, the exact technical sense (binary/decimal representation, precision, exponent/mantissa) is specialized and not fully predictable from everyday meanings, making it only partially transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Floating-point number comes from the image of the point, the decimal dot, that can float left or right to show very big or very small numbers. That's why floating-point numbers let computers store 'very large or very small values' and sometimes do not store them exactly.