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This thermometer is indicating a negative Fahrenheit temperature (−4 °F). In mathematics, a negative number is the opposite of a positive real number. [1] Equivalently, a negative number is a real number that is less than zero. Negative numbers are often used to represent the magnitude of a loss or deficiency.
Negative numbers: Real numbers that are less than zero. Because zero itself has no sign, neither the positive numbers nor the negative numbers include zero. When zero is a possibility, the following terms are often used: Non-negative numbers: Real numbers that are greater than or equal to zero. Thus a non-negative number is either zero or positive.
Compared with the fixed-point number system, the floating-point number system is more efficient in representing real numbers so it is widely used in modern computers. While the real numbers R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } are infinite and continuous, a floating-point number system F {\displaystyle F} is finite and discrete.
Converting a number from scientific notation to decimal notation, first remove the × 10 n on the end, then shift the decimal separator n digits to the right (positive n) or left (negative n). The number 1.2304 × 10 6 would have its decimal separator shifted 6 digits to the right and become 1,230,400 , while −4.0321 × 10 −3 would have its ...
When a number is written using ordinary decimal notation, leading zeros are not significant, and trailing zeros of numbers not written with a decimal point are implicitly considered to be non-significant. [110] For example, the numbers 0.056 and 1200 each have only 2 significant digits, but the number 40.00 has 4 significant digits.
For a number x whose decimal representation extends k places to the left, the standard notation is the juxtaposition of the digits ., in descending order by power of ten, with non-negative and negative powers of ten separated by a decimal point, representing the infinite series
Systems with negative base, complex base or negative digits have been described. Most of them do not require a minus sign for designating negative numbers. The use of a radix point (decimal point in base ten), extends to include fractions and allows representing any real number with arbitrary accuracy.
Moreover, in the standard decimal representation of , an infinite sequence of trailing 0's appearing after the decimal point is omitted, along with the decimal point itself if is an integer. Certain procedures for constructing the decimal expansion of x {\displaystyle x} will avoid the problem of trailing 9's.