Floating-Point Numbers II
Just as some numbers are too big to fit in a given number of bits of storage, some floating-point numbers are too small
Numbers nearer to zero are closer together than numbers with larger exponents
- the mantissa multiplies the exponent; successive numbers in the mantissa multiply the larger exponents
Adding a relatively small number to a large one may not change the large one
- e.g. 1.0E30 + 1.0E1 = 1.0E30
- the mantissa may not have enough precision to reflect the addition of such a relatively small number