Explain why the hidden bit of floating point format does not need to be represented

floating-point

Solution

If you mean by the hidden bit the the one preceding the mantissa H.xxxxxxx, H=hidden, the answer is that it is implicitly 1, when exponent>0 and it's zero, when exponent==0.

Omitting the bit, when it can be calculated from the exponent, allows one more bit of precision in the mantissa.

Problem

Explain why the hidden bit of floating point format does not need to be represented. help? I know that the hidden bit exists for more precision but why doesn't it need to be represented?

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