Multiply 9910 times 9910 :
9801
How many decimal places does each operand (99) take:
2
.
How many decimal places does the result take:
4
.
The product of two N-place decimal integers may need 2N places. This is also true for numbers expressed in any base. In particular, the product of two integers expressed with N-bit binary may need 2N bits. For example, here two 8-bit unsigned integers are multiplied using the usual paper-and-pencil multiplication algorithm (but using binary arithmetic):
10110111 B7 18310 10100010 A2 16210 -------- -- --- 00000000 10110111. 00000000.. 00000000... 00000000.... 10110111..... 00000000...... 10110111....... --------------- ---- ----- 111001111001110 73CE 2964610
The two 8-bit operands result in a 15-bit product. Also shown are the same produce done with base 16 and base 10 notation.