Double-precision

Double-precision floating point numbers have the following format:

   63    62    52   51           0
|-----|----------|----------------|
| SIGN|  EXPONENT|  FRACTION      |
 ----------------------------------
                    ^
                    binary point

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Field        Position     Full name
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 sign         63           sign bit (0==positive, 1==negative)
 exponent     62-52        exponent (biased by 1023)
 fraction     51-0         fraction (bits to right of binary point)