Significant digits in a float?

[Roy Smith]

On Monday, April 28, 2014 12:28:59 PM UTC-4, Chris Angelico wrote:

> Terminology question: Why do you count only what's after the decimal
> point? I would describe these as having between 2 and 6 significant
> figures. Will they always have two digits before the decimal, or does
> your precision really care only about what's after it?

Hmmm, yeah, I was being sloppy in my description.  Definitely would have gotten points off in physics class for being so sloppy :-)

No, there's not always two digits before the decimal.  Could be anywhere from 0 to 3 digits before. What I'm really after is how many digits are after the decimal point.