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Ordinarily, all of the mantissa bits are used to express significant figures, in addition to a leading 1, which is implied and therefore left out. Consequently, floats ordinarily have 24 significant bits of precision, and doubles ordinarily have 53 significant bits of precision. Such numbers are called normalized numbers. All floating-point numbers are limited in the sense that they have fixed precision. See FLP00-C. Understand the limitations of floating-point numbers.
Mantissa bits are used to express extremely small numbers that are too small to encode normally because of the lack of available exponent bits. Using mantissa bits extends the possible range of exponents. Because these bits no longer function as significant bits of precision, the total precision of extremely small numbers is less than usual. Such numbers are called denormalized, and they are more limited than normalized numbers. However, even using normalized numbers where precision is required can pose a risk. See FLP02-C. Avoid using floating point numbers when precise computation is needed for more information.
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Bibliography
[IEEE 754]
[Bryant 2003] Section 2.4 "Floating point"
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