How do I turn 5.000000E-01 into a 'human readable' value?

Question

Title says it all ? What's that 00000000E thing all about ?

Answer 1

5.000000E-01 = 5.000000 · 10⁻¹ = 0.5

E stands for exponent of 10.

Answer 2

Split the string on the E and have the right hand side as the exponent to the left hand side, if you're programming something. It's called "Standard Form", which is weird seeing as it's not actually standard (0.5 would be standard!), it's just a method everybody's agreed on to display really big, or really small, numbers.