The way your computer handles numbers with decimals differently from how you and I think about mathematics. When adding 0.1 + 0.2 in many programming languages, people are surprised to find out that their computer gives them a result like 0.30000000000000004, instead of 0.3.
Read on to learn how to use this tool and visualize IEEE 754 floating point numbers.
Binary representation
Controls
Select whether you would like to enter your single precision floating point number as Decimal or Hexadecimal.
How to use
In most cases, computers store your numbers using a binary representation, including decimal numbers. This tool visualizes how computers store single precision IEEE 754 floating point numbers in memory. IEEE 754 specifies many other number formats.
Single precision floating point numbers have 23 binary digits in their significand and 8 binary digits in their exponent. Try entering a number in the form below and see what your computer sees. You can also press some of the example number buttons below to see some examples.
This tool also shows you the hexadecimal representation of your number. When you select Hexadecimal from the Input type drop-down menu, it converts your number to Hexadecimal. Try changing the individual characters in the hexadecimal representation to see what effect it has on the number.