On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 10:02 AM, Marko Rauhamaa <ma...@pacujo.net> wrote: > Ian Kelly <ian.g.ke...@gmail.com>: > >> The significand of -3.14159 is the sequence of digits 314159. The >> mantissa of -3.14159 is the number 0.85841. > > Fight it all you want. However: > > In American English, the original word for [significand] seems to > have been mantissa (Burks[1] et al.), and this usage remains common > in computing and among computer scientists. > <URL: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significand#Use_of_.22mantissa.22>
Just because it's already common to use the wrong term doesn't mean the usage should be promulgated further. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
