3. Floating left

So how do you convert a regular number to use floating point notation?

Let's take the following real number as an example:

$$345.212$$

To convert this into standard floating point format, you 'float' the decimal point to the left (this is why it's called 'floating point'). Keep moving it until there is only one non-zero digit to the left of the point, like this:

To balance it out, each time you float the point to the left, you need to multiply the number by ten.

$$345.212$$

$$34.5212 \times 10$$

$$3.45212 \times 10 \times 10$$

You can also write this as

$$3.45212 \times 10^2$$