[boomlinde]

I wonder why the significand is represented as a > 1 number. It complicates representing zero (making it a special case not covered by the article of defining exponent=0, mantissa=0 to mean zero). Is it for the purpose of simplifying arithmetic operations or is it to minimize the number of redundant representations of zero?

[rational_indian]

The leading 1. prefix can be omitted from the binary representation thus saving a bit in the process.

[boomlinde]

That doesn't answer my question, though. I'm asking why the significand is in the range 1-2 instead of 0-1.