What is precision of a number representation?

[Ben Bacarisse]

Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> writes:

> Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> writes:
>
>> I will readily admit to not having a maths degree, and so of course to
>> me saying the integer 123 has a precision of 5, 10, or 99 digits seems
>> like hogwash to me.
>
> Precision is not a property of the number. It is a property of the
> *representation* of that number.
>
> The representation “1×10²” has a precision of one digit.
> The representation “100” has a precision of three digits.
> The representation “00100” has a precision of five digits.
> The representation “100.00” also has a precision of five digits.

What is your source for the third one?  I've never seen the term used
in this way so I'm curious about how widely it's used.  (I disagree with
the second one, too, but that's an old argument that does not need
resurrecting.)

> Those can all represent the same number; or maybe some of them represent
> “one hundred” and others represent “one hundred and a millionth”.

So 00100 represents the range [99.995, 100.005] just like 100.00?
That's new to me.  It is more than a Python thing?

<snip>
-- 
Ben.