In floating-point arithmetic , the significand is a component of a finite floating-point number 
 containing its significant digits.
Generally speaking, the significand can be thought of as an integer , as a fraction , or as some other fixed-point form by
 choosing an appropriate exponent offset (that is, an appropriate bias. What's more,
 a decimal or subnormal  binary significand may
 also contain leading zeros.
 
See also Arithmetic , 
Biased Exponent , 
Floating-Point Algebra , 
Floating-Point Arithmetic , 
Floating-Point
 Exponent , 
Floating-Point Normal Number ,
 
Floating-Point Number , 
Floating-Point
 Preferred Exponent , 
Floating-Point Quantum ,
 
Floating-Point Representation , 
IEEE 754-2008 , 
Interval
 Arithmetic , 
NaN , 
Quiet NaN ,
 
Signaling NaN , 
Subnormal
 Number 
This 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 . Referenced
 on Wolfram|Alpha Significand 
Cite this as: 
Stover, Christopher . "Significand." From MathWorld Eric
 W. Weisstein . https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Significand.html 
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