[Cfp-interest 2209] Re: quantum

[Mike Cowlishaw]

Hi Paul,

'Quantum' in this sense was a usage made up by the 754 committee, and I
don't think I ever used it before 2003 or thereabouts (e.g., in
http://speleotrove.com/decimal/damodel.html).

754 defines it as 

  "quantum:  The quantum of a finite floating-point representation is the
value 
  of a unit in the last position of its significand.  This is equal to the
radix
  raised to the exponent q, which is used when the significand is regarded
as an 
  integer."

I generally talk about 'preserving the exponent' rather than 'preserving the
quantum'.

Mike



> -----Original Message-----
> [this is maybe more a question for the IEEE 754 list, but 
> since the intersection is not empty, and this list is more 
> active, I ask it here]
> 
> I searched yesterday for a wiki page explaining the notion of 
> "quantum"
> in the context of IEEE 754-2019, with some examples, but found none.
> 
> Maybe there is one and I did not find it because my search 
> engine thought I was looking at something related to quantum 
> computers.
> 
> If there is none, this is really something missing.