Question

The accuracy of the floating-point numbers representable in 32 bit words of a computer is approximately

• A. 16 digits
• B. 6 digits
• C. 9 digits
• D. All of above

Answer 1

The correct option is B 6 digits

The accuracy is 6 digits.

Here, the total number of bits is 32 and according to IEEE754 representation format if we want to represent a floating point number with single precision(32 bit) then all bits will be divided into 3 parts -

1) sign bit = 1 bit,

2) exponent = 8 bit and

3) fraction = 23 bit.

Example = 0.15625

IEEE754 single precision representation -

00111110001000000000000000000000

where,

sign bit = 0

exponent = 01111100

fraction = 01000000000000000000000