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In a decimal floating point number representation it is always possible to use a power of 10 (exponent) to write a number so that it lies between 0 and 1, by changing the exponent. For example: 5 = 0.5 x 10 50 = 0.5 x (10 to the power 2) 0.05 = 0.5 x (10 to the power -1) This is called normalisation. In the binary representation of floating point numbers it is always possible to shift the number until it starts with a 1, provided you change the exponent at the same time. This is how computer memory works. If you do this, however, the 1 does not need to be stored (because it can always be added with a little extra processing). So in computers the number is often normalised, and the leading 1 omitted. But if the storage convention assumes this is done, then, of course, it must be done for every number stored in memory.

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