In matlab, when typing in realmax('single') you obtain: 3.4028e+38. How is this number derived? I understand that realmax('single') is the highest floating point number represented in single percision which is 32-bits. That means the binary representation consists of 1 bit for the sign, 23 bits for the mantissa and 8 bit for the exponent. And 3.4028e+38 is the decimal representation of the highest single percision floating point number, but I don't know how that number was derived. Can someone please explain in detail how and why 3.4028e+38 appears. Thank you.