To make the fixed part of the representation uniform, both the scientific method (for the decimal system) and the floating-point method (for the binary system) use only one non-zero digit on the left of the decimal point. This is called normalization. In the decimal system this digit can be 1 to 9, while in the binary system it can only be 1. In the following, d is a non-zero digit, x is a digit, and y is either 0 or 1.