# The smallest positive usable number

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-smallest-positive-usable-number/981>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [December 15, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-smallest-positive-usable-number/981 "2016-12-15T21:50:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![simonbyrne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/simonbyrne/32/19_2.png) [@simonbyrne](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/simonbyrne)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-smallest-positive-usable-number/981/4 "2016-12-15T22:50:52Z")

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Hmm, the numpy docs [really do say that](https://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-1.10.0/reference/generated/numpy.finfo.html).

More precisely, this is the smallest magnitude normal floating point number, which is available in Julia via [`realmin(Float64)`](http://docs.julialang.org/en/release-0.5/stdlib/base.html?highlight=realmin#Base.realmin).

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