A floating point number in binary arithmetic is a number of form 2, where e and m are integers written in binary (that is, base 2) notation, and the dot in 0.m is the binary "decimal" point, that is, if the digits of m are m1, m1, ..., mk (mk = 0 or 1). Here e is called the exponent and m is called the mantissa. In the standard form of a floating point number it is assumed that m1 = 1 unless all digits of m are 0; a non zero number in nonstandard form can usually be brought into standard form by lowering the exponent and shifting the mantissa.