Definition:Floating-Point Representation/Mantissa

Definition

Let $x$ be a real number expressed in floating-point representation as:

$x = f \times \beta^e$

where:

$f$ is a real number such that $\dfrac 1 \beta \le \size f < 1$, expressed in decimal notation

$e$ is an integer.

The real number $f$ is known as the mantissa of the floating-point representation.

Also see

• Results about floating-point representation can be found here.

Sources

• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): floating-point representation
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): floating-point representation