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Is there a particular term or turn of phrase to describe a highly decimalised number (e.g., 3771388.6900399177) as opposed to a number that is decimalised to only a few decimal places?

Also, is there specific terminology that refers to the decimalised aspect of a number such as the 6900399177 part of 3771388.6900399177?

I have done ample googling without any search success.

Cheers.

Pytheorem
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  • Have you considered the number of significant digits? For the second part, why not "fractional part"? – David K Dec 17 '21 at 03:22
  • To be honest, @David_K, I haven’t. I am writing a report that involves the conversion of measurements between different units of measurement. Some of the results produce integers or neat tenths or hundredths but others are highly decimalised. The ‘highly decimalised’ results are indicative of anomalies which I then have to explain and elaborate. I was seeking alternative terminology to always having to refer to them as “the highly decimalised result” or “their decimalised aspect is…” For sure I have used each of those phrases twenty times by now. – Pytheorem Dec 17 '21 at 05:17
  • One might also call such numbers "high precision". (Precision tells you how many digits are present. Accuracy tells you how many agree with the correct value. For instance, "The time is 0:21:02.000100002000030." has precision to the quadrillionth of a second. I'd be surprised if it has two digits of accuracy for you at the time you read it.) – Eric Towers Dec 17 '21 at 06:22
  • A frequent mistake in units conversion is that people take a measurement with just a few significant digits and apply a conversion factor to it exactly, producing a result with far more apparently "significant" digits than the original measurement warrants. Lots of digits in a conversion factor is not the problem (some simple fractions have infinitely many decimal digits), the problem is deciding how many digits to round the result to. – David K Dec 17 '21 at 12:49
  • @Eric_Towers I quite enjoyed your ‘fleeting’ allusion to the passing precision of time. I get your reference to high precision values too, however, with the context of my results being that the highly decimalised answers reflect an imprecision or inaccuracy I cannot apply your connotation in this case. – Pytheorem Dec 18 '21 at 22:19
  • Hi @David-K. Thank you for that advice. In that regard, I have been able to source a great little article by Borman & Chatfield (2015) that has provided a wealth of useful information. – Pytheorem Dec 18 '21 at 22:25

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