Given a decimal-valued floating-point operation in the IEEE 754-2008 standard, the preferred exponent is the value of the exponent 
which preserves the quantum of the operands
whenever the result of the operation is exact.
Floating-Point Preferred Exponent
See also
Arithmetic, Biased Exponent, Floating-Point Algebra, Floating-Point Arithmetic, Floating-Point Exponent, Floating-Point Normal Number, Floating-Point Number, Floating-Point Quantum, Floating-Point Representation, IEEE 754-2008, Interval Arithmetic, NaN, Quiet NaN, Signaling NaN, Significand, Subnormal NumberThis entry contributed by Christopher Stover
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References
IEEE Computer Society. "IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic: IEEE Std 754-2008 (Revision of IEEE Std 754-1985)." 2008. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=4610935.Cite this as:
Stover, Christopher. "Floating-Point Preferred Exponent." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource, created by Eric W. Weisstein. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Floating-PointPreferredExponent.html