Numbers are to be represented in binary notation. He estimates 27 binary digits (he did not use the term "bit," which was coined by Claude Shannon in 1948) would be sufficient (yielding 8 decimal place accuracy) but rounds up to 30-bit numbers with a sign bit and a bit to distinguish numbers from orders, resulting in 32-bit word he calls a "minor cycle." Two’s complement arithmetic is to be used, simplifying subtraction. For multiplication and division, he proposes placing the binary point after sign bit, which means all numbers are treated as being between −1 and +1 and therefore computation problems must be scaled accordingly.