The distinction between two consecutive double numbers that come after each other in sequence is always 1. For example, the difference between 11.0 and 11.1, or 2.2 and 2.3, or 4.9 and 5.0 is always 0.1 (which is equal to 1 in the last decimal place). This is because a double-precision floating-point number has a fixed precision of binary digits, which means that each decimal place is represented by a certain number of bits (53 bits for double precision). Therefore, the smallest difference that can be represented between two consecutive double numbers is equal to the value of the least significant bit in the mantissa, which is 1/2^52 or approximately 2.22 x 10^-16.
Asked: 2023-03-31 11:00:00 +0000
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Last updated: Oct 23 '22