[kenjackson]

Interesting, but I don't think I fully understand when you'd use it. Why would you need to couple object references with floating-point values?

[danwolff]

Uneducated conjecture: They're not just any floating points, they are doubles. You need twice the capacity of one (32-bit double) in order to fake 64 bits. I assume that this helps meet the requirements of other pieces being hacked together.