To see the exact value of your float, you can use a BigDecimal:

float x = 0.98123452f;
System.out.println(new BigDecimal(x));

which outputs: 0.981234490871429443359375

So technically, this float:

float x = 0.981234490871429443359375f;
System.out.println(new BigDecimal(x)); //prints 0.981234490871429443359375

has 24 digits precision (it was obviously cherry-picked)...

Bottom line: not all numbers can be represented as a float and the gap between one float and the next one varies depending on the magnitude of the number.

To see the exact value of your float, you can use a BigDecimal:

float x = 0.98123452f;
System.out.println(new BigDecimal(x));

float x = 0.981234490871429443359375f;
System.out.println(new BigDecimal(x)); //prints 0.981234490871429443359375

has 24 digits precision (it was obviously cherry-picked)...

Forget what is above: BigDecimal only has a double constructor so there was a cast to double and the logic above is flawed.

Bottom line: not all numbers can be represented as a float and the gap between one float and the next one varies depending on the magnitude of the number.