Comment by ricardobeat
4 years ago
5e-5 is not really related to FP, it’s just scientific notation. The number itself is still stored as shown in the post, it’s just being printed in a more compact form.
The number after e is a power of 10:
5e2 = 5 * 10^2 = 5 * 100 = 500
5e-5 = 5 * 10^-5 = 5 / 100000 = 0.00005
Once you internalize this, you just read the exponent as “x zeroes to the left”.
Scientific notation is easily seen as just floating point in base ten, though. Had the same rules about leading 1 and such. Add in significant digits, and you have most all of the same concerns.
Scientific notation IS a floating point.