MASTERING FRACTIONS

MASTERING FRACTIONS

FRACTIONS are NUMBERS. Fractions are useful when dealing with numbers that are not WHOLE NUMBERS. Whole numbers are all the COUNTING NUMBERS, namely, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., but excludes INFINITY.  Infinity is not a counting number because you cannot count Infinity.

Example of numbers that are not whole numbers are one half, a quarter, and a hundred and one tenth. You express these three numbers using ARABIC NUMBERS these ways: 1/2, 1/4, and 100 1/10, respectively.  These three numbers are called fractions because they are not whole numbers.

What is the meaning of 1/2?  ONE HALF means that instead of one whole number, there is only a half of that one whole number. In other words, you divided that one whole number, the number 1, by 2, that is, 1 divided by 2, or 1/2.  Remember that the SLASH SIGN, /, means "DIVIDED BY".

What is the meaning of 1/4?  A QUARTER means there is only a quarter of that one whole number. That means you are dividing that one whole number, 1, by 4, that is 1 divided by 4, or 1/4.

What is the meaning of 100 1/10?  A HUNDRED and a one TENTH means that you have 100 but you also have the fractional number 1/10.  One tenth is one whole number, 1, divided by 10, or 1/10. So writing down the whole number together with its fractional number, you write the whole number first followed by its fractional number, 100 1/10, in our example.

MATH EXERCISES:
Write the following alphabetically written numbers into Arabic numbers:
1. One third
2. One fifth
3. One hundredth
4. One and one tenth
5. Two hundred and three hundredth

Happy math hunting!

John