4e4
is a floating-point number representation.
It consists of:
- Sign – S(+ or -)
- Mantissa – M(some number, normalized: 1.x where x is some sequence of digits)
- Exponent – E(represents a power of 10 that is Mantissa(M) multiplied with)
It is also a way of how floating-point numbers are stored on the system. For instance, for single-precision we get:
single-precision floating-point number representation
Together, it gives us:
-1^S * M * p^E
where p is the basis of the numerical system
So, in common sense, p can be anything so that 4e4
could be also 4 * 5^4
if p == 5
As we usually work with
decimal values
p is equal to 10
And as was answered before, 4e4 == 4 * 10^4
(as 4 is a decimal value in this case)