I've been working with numbers in fractional form (e.g. 1/2) and written out (e.g. 0.5). However, the numbers are in binary and I do not know what to call the dot between the zero and five in the written out example. Calling it a decimal point seems to imply that I am working in base 10, but that is not true. Is there a term specific to the binary number system?
Learn English – the binary equivalent to “decimal” and “decimal point”
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There isn't really a standard term hundred-thousandths probably for the reasons you give; you can't pronounce a hyphen.
The usual terminology jumps from 10-3 (thousandths) to 10-6 (millionths)
0.2 is two tenths
0.02 is two hundredths
0.002 is two thousandths
0.0002[00] is two hundred millionths
0.00002[0] is twenty millionths
0.000002 is two millionths.
0.765 is seven hundred and sixty five thousandths.
Two hundred thousandths is 0.200, or less commonly twenty hundredths or (and I'd say this would be the preferred wording) two tenths.
Why decimal vs fractional? I guess that's historical. When all you've got is an inch, a thou makes more sense than 0.001 of an inch.
The use of fractions (with a decimal denominator) is not new, decimal fraction terminology is part and parcel of the decimal number system, tenth, hundredth, thousandth etc.
Non decimal fractional terminology has a long history too.
Before about 1700 all currencies were not decimal, the UK had pounds split into twenty shillings with twelve pence in each shilling, the US had a variable number of cents to the dollar (about ninety usually), the Spanish peso was split into eight reals and so on and those variations didn't lend themselves to decimal representations, so fractional representations were common. Almost all currencies are now representable in the same decimal form. Each country changed to a basic 1 to 100 unit at different times.
Similarly measures of length, an inch is a twelfth of a foot, a foot is a third of a yard. Going the other way an inch was (and still is) subdivided into quarters, eighths and sixteenths, even thirty-seconds and sixty-fourths, and so on.
When to use one and not the other? I don't think it matters.
I find referring to something as zero point one zero of a gallon (or even just point one of a gallon) just isn't as comfortable as saying a tenth of a gallon.
You are using a term for a decimal fractions if you say something is 72 cents because cents is a direct replacement for a hundredth of a dollar so 72 hundredths of a dollar is 72 cents.
Best Answer
You can refer to this symbol as a radix point no matter what the base is.
In computer science and mathematics, the word radix can mean the same thing as base or root. The contemporary meaning derives from earlier meanings referring literally to the "roots" of plants, and later to roots in a mathematical sense and other senses.
The OED provides this definition:
In binary, the point can also be referred to as a binary point. Here is an example use from the OED under a different headword (mantissa):
Some people have also used the term bicimal point, a portmanteau of "binary" and "decimal," to describe this symbol. Bicimal is not defined in dictionaries that I checked, but it can be found in use.