MATLAB: Machine epsilon

MATLAB

What does it mean for MATLAB to have a machine epsilon 2.2204e-16? Does that mean we can only be sure of a number up to the 15th decimal place, so something else?
Thanks.

Best Answer

It roughly means that numbers are stored with about 15-16 digits of precision. If a number is approximately 1, then that means it can be stored with an error of around 10^(-16) or so. If the number is approximately 1000, then it is stored with an error around 10^(-13) or so.
This is a VERY rough, non-technical explanation.