I am reteaching myself math, but something is bugging me soooo bad and I can’t find the answer. What is a real life example of multiplying a fraction by a fraction? I was wondering why .05 to the 5th exponent would get smaller not bigger. This is driving me bonkers.
Sure 1/2 makes sense, but how about 1/2 times 3/5 in real life?!?
Edit: OMFG. Math is cool and makes sense. Finally, I’m 28. Thank you all!!!!
Edit: I was given an AP Scholar award, but it was not for math.
* * * The best explanation goes to the person who explained “times” and “of” were synonomous!!!! * * *
NOW EXPLAIN THIS: How am I in the 99.9th percentile for arithmetic, but suck at math?! Do I have potential? Am I still gifted in “math” or are math and arithmetic too separate things. A professor told me they are different parts of the brain.
In: Mathematics
Lets look at integers to begin with….x * 4 == x + x + x + x; “x multiplied by four is the same as four of itself added together”
Similarly if we turn that multiplier down to 1 we see a problem like this….x * 1 == x + 0; “x multiplied by one is itself with nothing else added to it.”
Regarding fractions-
If we turn that multiplier down even more it becomes a fraction. Consider how we would add less than nothing or start out with less than the original number.
x * (2/3) == ((x*2)/3) + 0 == ***x + (- (x/3))***; “x multiplied by half is the same as x ***plus a third of itself less than nothing added to it***.
I’ve written the section in bold because I assume the regular “just multiply it by the numerator” solution wasn’t doing it for you. Instead, we’re adding like in the first to examples I gave but we are multiplying less than 1, and we are adding less than zero than x, we are adding a negative number.
[edit: incorrectly said “half”, as the equation is written we should add a negative third (subtract one third)]
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