Floating point operations is slower when small values are used?

[Cesaro]

I have the following simple program that multiplies two different floating point numbers many times. As you can see, one of the numbers is very small. When I calculate the time of executing both multiplications, I was surprised that the little number takes much longer than the other one. It seems that working with small doubles is slower... Does anyone know what is happening?

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
		long iterations = 10000000;
		double result;
		double number = 0.1D;
		double numberA = Double.MIN_VALUE;
		double numberB = 0.0008D;

		long startTime, endTime,elapsedTime;
		
		
		//Multiply numberA
		startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
		
		for(int i=0; i < iterations; i++)
			result = number * numberA;
		
		endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
		elapsedTime = endTime - startTime;
		
		System.out.println("Number A) Time elapsed: " + elapsedTime + " ms");

		//Multiply numberB
		startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
		for(int i=0; i < iterations; i++)
			result = number * numberB;
		
		endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
		elapsedTime = endTime - startTime;
		
		System.out.println("Number B) Time elapsed: " + elapsedTime + " ms");
}

Result:
Number A) Time elapsed: 3546 ms
Number B) Time elapsed: 110 ms

Thanks,
Diego

[angryboy]

its a matter of precision, for example:

public class Test {
  static long iterations = 10000000;
  static long startTime, endTime;
  static double result, elapsedTime;
  
  public static void main(String[] args){		
    time(Double.MIN_VALUE);   
    time(4.90000e-324);
    time(4.90000e-320);
    time(4.90000e-315);
    time(4.90000e-310);
    time(4.90000e-309);
    time(4.90000e-308);//slow
    time(4.90000e-307);//fast
    time(4.90000e-306);
    time(4.90000e-305);
    time(Double.MAX_VALUE);
  }

  public static void time(double d){
    startTime = System.nanoTime();
    for(int i=0; i < iterations; i++)
      result = 0.1D * d;
    endTime = System.nanoTime();
    elapsedTime = (endTime - startTime)/1000000D;
    System.out.printf("Number %g\tTime elapsed: %.4f ms\n", d, elapsedTime);
  }
}

Number 4.90000e-324     Time elapsed: 1388.6648 ms
Number 4.90000e-324     Time elapsed: 1513.0510 ms
Number 4.90000e-320     Time elapsed: 1721.3305 ms
Number 4.90000e-315     Time elapsed: 1512.3794 ms
Number 4.90000e-310     Time elapsed: 1644.4087 ms
Number 4.90000e-309     Time elapsed: 1946.8857 ms
[B]Number 4.90000e-308     Time elapsed: 1699.0190 ms
Number 4.90000e-307     Time elapsed: 99.3045 ms[/B]
Number 4.90000e-306     Time elapsed: 94.0902 ms
Number 4.90000e-305     Time elapsed: 94.9939 ms
Number 1.79769e+308     Time elapsed: 191.4065 ms