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who says, 5/6 is easy to mentally understand than 0.83־.
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is a reasonable way to start thinking about arithmetics, and basically to start doing simple math IMO.
Comment on Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit
Rooty@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Ahh, fractions and word problems, the bane of my education (seriously, why do we bother with fractions when decimals are easier to compute and express?)
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 3 days ago
Jamablaya@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Man, if you can’t understand fractions, you don’t actually understand the math, you’re just trained to use a formula.
Rooty@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I understand fractions, I simply doubt their utility.
Jamablaya@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Saying shit like that implies you don’t really get that they are the same thing.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 2 days ago
For example, they allow you to write
1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1
Which is not possible in decimal
axEl7fB5@lemmy.cafe 1 day ago
Tf you mean?? You can write it in a repeating decimal as
0.333…using ellipsis. wiki.froth.zone/wiki/Repeating_decimalJamablaya@lemmy.world 2 days ago
well, no, it’s understood that a third is .333 to infinity, so .333+.333+.333 does equal 1 for any use not requiring precision to the point of it mattering that it was actually .33333335 when measured.
SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Hate to break it to you but anything less than a whole is a fraction of a whole thing. Decimals, too, are bits of a whole.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The higher the level of the course I was taking, the less test markers cared about the actual final answer. If you used the correct equations, simplifying the final answer to a faction rather than a decimal or leaving constants like pi and e in there was good enough for full marks.
Generally more accurate, too, because you’re not rounding the number but leaving it as the true value because 1/3 != 0.333333. It’s better to do it this way if there’s multiple steps, too, since you can gather or cancel out like terms if you leave them as variables instead of converting and rounding to some decimal.
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 days ago
People have already commented on fractions, there’s a lot of math that is way easier to keep accurate by leaving in fractional form as it goes.
For word problems, done correctly, the math is pointless if you can’t map it to more realistic scenarios. In terms of applying math to the real world, it’s supremely rare that the world just spits out the equation ready for you to solve, the ability to distill a scenario described by prose to a mathemetical solution is critical. Problem is when they are handled incorrectly and have ambiguous solutions or parameters, but dealing with kids’ homework, this is pretty rare, though it’s admittedly utterly infuriating when it comes up.
gerryflap@feddit.nl 3 days ago
Imo fractions are way more simple in many cases than decimal numbers. Saying 1/3rd is way more useful than hitting someone with the 0.33333333333333… Quick mental computations with fractions are also simpler in this case. Though this question (and questions like it) seem useless to me indeed.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 2 days ago
Or just say 33%?
beegnyoshi@lemm.ee 2 days ago
33.33333333333…%, you mean?
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 2 days ago
In 99/100 of the situations people do not care about you saying 33% instead of 1/3 or 33,3333333333% or 33,33…%
gerryflap@feddit.nl 2 days ago
In many cases that’s fine, I’ve done so regularly. But when you want to be precise without making it complicated you can just say the fraction as well. But in order to do that you need people to feel comfortable with it, therefore we need to teach kids this from a young age. I’m not saying we always need them, but they’re definitely very useful tools that you want at the ready when you need them. To make quick calculations in your head it’s often way simpler to use the fraction than the real number. And in cases like 1/3rd or 3/7ths it’s a way simpler, accurate and more efficient way to communicate the number than to name the rounded number.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 2 days ago
At least where I am from we do get fractions in school.
Most people here will say “een derde” aka a 3rd, but it is mostly not used as a precise measurement or anything. Something like 3/7th is rarely used andd we would say 42,9%. In cases where the differences that create are relevant we would communicate it on paper or digitally where iirc we would still use percentages or decimals. Then again I am an accountant and not a technical analysist or anything. For me the difference between 42,9% and 42,85714 will mean a couple thousand at most.
Doesn’t imperial metrics also use frations from time to time? Metric doesn’t do that, but we have things like nanometers etc.
Anti_Iridium@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I mean I understand, but in the case of .33333333333333… isnt it actually represented as “point three repeating”
gerryflap@feddit.nl 1 day ago
Possible, but at least in my experience most normal people know 1/3rd and understand what it means, but if I’d throw a “point three repeating” at them they’d probably get confused. Fractions are just a tool to communicate stuff more efficiently, good in some scenarios, confusing in others. It would be cool if we could teach everyone the “repeating” syntax as well because it’s another useful tool.