I was going through this SO post on Math.random() vs Random.nextInt(int) and encountered the following line :
Random.nextDouble() uses Random.next() twice to generate a double that has approximately uniformly distributed bits in its mantissa, so it is uniformly distributed in the range 0 to 1-(2^-53).
From the Wikipedia link on Significand:
In American English, the original word for this seems to have been mantissa (Burks et al.), and as of 2005 this usage remains common in computing and among computer scientists. However, this use of mantissa is discouraged by the IEEE floating-point standard committee and by some professionals such as William Kahan and Donald Knuth,[citation needed] because it conflicts with the pre-existing use of mantissa for the fractional part of a logarithm (see also common logarithm).
What does mantissa actually mean here ? How is the range coming out to be 0 to 1-(2^-53)?