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
The answer you’re looking for is something you haven’t really thought to ask: what does the operation “times” mean in everyday English?
Say “of” whenever you see the times symbol.
Hope that clears up your confusion đ
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It makes a little more sense if you think about what multiplying is doing in general: itâs sorting things into groups.
When you multiply 2 X 4 what youâre saying is âI want 2 groups of 4.â
So with your example of (1/2) X (3/5) youâre saying âI want half a group of 3/5.â And thatâs why the answer (3/10) is smaller and than the original 3/5.
And bonus round: when you divide what youâre asking is âhow many groups of one thing does it take to make another?â
So example, if youâre dividing 4 by 2, youâre asking how many groups of 2 are there in 4.
So if weâre dividing (1/2) by (1/4), weâre asking âhow many groups of 1/4 does it take to make 1/2?â And this is why the answer is 2.
This is why fractions get smaller when you multiply and larger when you divide.
I’m surprised I didn’t see any visual representations of multiplication here. Check out this website to see what multiplication of fractions looks like.
https://www.origoeducation.com/blog/focus-on-fractions-a-visual-model-to-teach-multiplication-and-division-of-fractions/
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I have not seen this being addressed, but my comment here would be that you are trying to continuously anchor mathematics in intuition. That eventually only gets you so far. From a certain point on in mathematics you inevitably leave the grounds of the innately familiar, and move to using the power of applying rules that will give you the right answer, WITHOUT being intuitive. I would argue that separation from intuition is what makes mathematics so powerful.
A REAL life example:
You’ve been feeding your dog 2/3 cup of brand A kibbles each meal according to the instructions. Then here comes brand B kibbles, a higher quality food for your dog and you’re supposed to give 2/3 cup each meal as well.
Since you don’t want to shock your dog’s digestive system (and result in horrific diarrhoea), you ought to gradually decrease the proportion of brand A kibbles and increase the proportion of brand B kibbles over the course of 5 days or longer.
So here’s the meal plan gonna look–
Day 1: (2/3)X(4/5) cup of brand A + (2/3)X(1/5) cup of brand B
Day 2: (2/3)X(3/5) cup of brand A + (2/3)X(2/5) cup of brand B
Day 3: (2/3)X(2/5) cup of brand A + (2/3)X(3/5) cup of brand B
Day 4: (2/3)X(1/5) cup of brand A + (2/3)X(4/5) cup of brand B
Day 5: (2/3)X(0/5) cup of brand A + (2/3)X(5/5) cup of brand B
Yup, this is a real life example… None of those cutting up pizza/pie crap. Who doesn’t eat the entire thing in one sitting?
A fraction is a way to say you want to multiply by one number *and* also divide by another number.
90 * (2/3) means start with 90, then multiply by 2, and then divide by 3.
Multiplying more than one fraction is to apply each fractionâs multiplication and division. (2/3) * (4/5) means 2 / 3 * 4 / 5. And because the order of multiplications and divisions is not significant, you can reorder this as 2 * 4 / 3 / 5.
Then that can be combined and simplified to (2 * 4) / (3 * 5), or 8 / 15.
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