Member Avatar for lochnessmonster

ok so i understand it's impossible to represent .01(decimal) in binary...an example i know of would be just like how 1/30 is impossible to represent in decimal

1/30 <--- always gives u .033333.....it goes on forever and i can even prove this by writing out 1 divided by 30 and i notice i keep getting the same number over and over and i am in an infinite loop. my question is how can i prove that .01 cannot be represented in binary form,without using a repeating decimal division problem? in other words i can i prove this by USING only binary digits to get my point across?

is .01(decimal) even representable in binary?

  • 3 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 109 Views
  • 3 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by geojia
Member Avatar for apines

Take a look here.
Think about it - if you have floating points on your computer, then there is a binary representation of it :)

Edited by apines because: n/a
Member Avatar for geojia

Another way to help you think about this problem. If you know calc then this will make more sense. Think about it this way.

1. you are on a number line, specifically a segment from 0 to 0.01
2. the idea is you are taking an infinite number of half steps to 0.01 (ie, first step gets you to .005, 2nd to 0.0075, 3rd to 0.00875...nth step to 0.01-(0.01/2)^n) each "step" is 1 bit
.*. and you can only get to 0.01 as n->infinity

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.