#fractions
How old were you when you realised that the divide sign was a mini fraction?
%
Ooh fractions, how I hate you so!! So many notes :-( #bored #school #GED #studying #fractions #Ihatefractions
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WHY DIDNT THEY TEACH ME THAT IN SCHOOL. I HAVE AN ASSOCIATES IN SCIENCE. GODDAMN IT
I just said what over and over again, getting louder each time as I did the math in my head to see if that checks out. It does
This is a good shortcut and here’s a little visual to explain it!
Generally when you see the word “of” in a word problem, it’s implying multiplication. If you have three of something, you’re taking that something and multiplying it by three. That works for any number, even the smaller ones!
Since 8% is just shorthand for 8/100, we can write that first example like this:
That 25 can be written as a fraction too, it just has an invisible 1 in the denominator. If you remember your rules of algebra, we can smoosh those two fractions together like so:
Then we can do the same thing we just did, but in reverse. Let the 8 go off by itself. Turn it over in your head to confirm that we haven’t changed anything:
Now if you wanted to write this out, you could call it “8 of 25%” or equivalently, 25% of 8 (since multiplication is commutative– it can be done in any order).
The fun thing about multiplying fractions is you can split them up, squish them together, and generally make them look however you want to suit your purposes. And that’s exactly what this shortcut is, at its heart! I hope it comes in handy.
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My fifth Rule is, if your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed, or make your reply distinctly less severe: and, if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards “making up” the little difference that has arisen between you, let your reply be distinctly more friendly. If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than three-eighths of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to go five-eighths of the way — why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels! Which is like the Irishman’s remonstrance to his gad-about daughter — “Shure, you’re always goin’ out! You go out three times, for wanst that you come in!”
Lewis Carroll, ‘Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing’, from The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll (Macmillan Press, 1982), edited by Morton N. Cohen
