Floating point numbers

Computable reals
computable numbers may be described briefly as the real numbers whose expressions as a decimal are calculable by finite means.(A. M. Turing,
On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entschiedungsproblem, Proc. London Mathematical Soc., Ser. 2 , Vol 42, pages 230-265, 1936-7.)

Look first at decimal reals

A real number may be approximated by a decimal expansion with a determinate decimal point. As more digits are added to the decimal expansion the precision rises. Any effective calculation is always finite if it were not then the calculation would go on for ever. There is thus a limit to the precision that the reals can be represented as.

Transcendental numbers
In principle, transcendental numbers such as Pi or root 2 have no finite representation We are always dealing with approximations to them. We can still treat Pi as a real rather than a rational because there is always an algorithmic step by which we can add another digit to its expansion.

First solution
Store the numbers in memory just as they are printed as a string of characters. 249.75 Would be stored as 6 bytes as shown below Note that decimal numbers are in the range 30H to 39H as ascii codes

Char for 3 32 34 39

Full stop char 2E 37 35

Implications
The number strings can be of variable length. This allows arbitrary precision. This representation is used in systems like Mathematica which requires very high accuracy.

Example with Mathematica

5! Out[1]=120 In[2]:=10! Out[2]=3628800 In[3]:=50! Out[3]=3041409320171337804361260816 60647688443776415689605120000000000 00

Decimal byte arithmetic

9+ 8= 17 decimal 39H+38H=71H hexadecimal ascii
57+56=113 decimal ascii Adjust by taking 30H=48 away -> 41H=65 If greater than 9=39H=57 take away 10=0AH and carry 1 Thus 41H-0Ah = 65-10=55=37H so the answer would be 31H,37H = 17

Representing variables
Variables are represented as pointers to character strings in this system A=249.75
A 32 34 39 2E 37 35

Advantages
Arbitrarily precise Needs no special hardware Disadvantages Slow Needs complex memory management

Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) or Calculator style floating point

Note that 249.75 can be represented as 2.4975 x 102 Store this 2 digits to a byte to fixed precision as follows
mantissa 24 97 50 exponent 02 Each digit uses 4 bits

32 bits overall

Normalise
Convert N to format with one digit in front of the decimal point as follows: 1. If N>10 then Whilst N>10 divide by 10 and add 1 to the exponent 2. Else whilst N<1 multiply by 10 and decrement the exponent

Add floating point

1. Denormalise smaller number so that exponents equal 2. Perform addition 3. Renormalise Eg 949.75 + 52.0 = 1002.75 9.49750 E02 9.49750 E02 5.20000 E01 0.52000 E02 + 10.02750 E02 1.00275 E03

Note loss of accuracy

Compare Octave which uses floating point numbers with Mathematica which uses full precision arithmetic Octave floating point gives only 5 figure accuracy
Octave fact(5) ans = 120 fact(10) ans = 3628800 fact(50) ans = 3.0414e+64
Mathematica 5! Out[1]=120 10! Out[2]=3628800 50! Out[3]=3041409320171337804 3612608166064768844377641 568960512000000000000

Loss of precison continued

When there is a big difference between the numbers the addition is lost with floating point
Octave 325000000 + 108 ans =
3.2500D+08

Mathematica
In[1]:= 325000000 + 108 Out[1]=

325000108

Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

IEEE floating point numbers

Single Precision

Definition
N=-1s x 1.F x 2E-128 Delete this bit Example 1 3.25 In fixed point binary = 11.01 = 1.101 x 21 In IEEE format this is s=0 E=129, F=10100 thus in IEEE it is
S E F 0|1000 0001|1010 0000 0000 0000 0000 000

Example 2
-0.375 = -3/8 In fixed point binary = -0.011 =-11 x 1.1 x 2-2 In IEEE format this is s=1 E=126, F=1000 thus in IEEE it is
S E F 1|0111 1110|1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 000

Range
IEEE32 1.17 * 1038 to +3.40 * 1038 IEEE64 2.23 * 10308 to +1.79 * 10308 80bit 3.37 * 104932 to +1.18 * 104932