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November 09, 2020

Double Precision Numbers

Numbers stored in memory with double the precision of the floating point data type.

The double data type, as for double precision floating-point, is a data type encoded on 64 bits: 1 sign bit, 11 exponent bits and 52 fractional bits.

Range and Precision

The 52 bits of the fractional part allows between 14 and 16 significant digits (2^(52) \approx 4.5 * 10^(15)). The exponent is stored on 11 bits, which allows numbers from 2^(-1023) \approx 1.11 * 10^(308) to 2^(1024) \approx 1.8 * 10^(308) although sometimes these two bounds are reserved for special purposes.