It would appear that in this case, 1.9041105342991887e+258 is not possible to store.

That is because 1.9041105342991887e+258 does not fit into m/2^n, and therefore cannot be represented precisely in base 2. You would need a couple more bits to push the rounding error further out, but that's just kicking the can down the road.

In other words, the binary representation of this floating point value results in a non-terminating sequence, much as 1/3rd results in a non-terminating sequence in base 10.


Dave

In reply to Re^4: Determining the minimum representable increment/decrement possible? by davido
in thread Determining the minimum representable increment/decrement possible? by BrowserUk

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