Approximate Numeric Types
Use approximate numeric data types to represent approximate numerical values. An approximate numerical value has these characteristics:
It can be a negative, zero, or positive number.
It’s considered to be an approximation of a floating-point (real) number.
It typically is used to represent very small quantities, very large quantities, or scientific calculations.
It’s expressed in scientific notation. A number in scientific notation is written as a decimal number multiplied by an (integer) power of 10. An uppercase E is the exponentiation symbol: 2.5E2 = 2.5 × 102 = 250, for example. The mantissa is the portion that expresses the significant digits (2.5 here) and the exponent is the power of 10 (2 here). The mantissa and ...
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