Let us visualize some of the fractions examples:
- Imagine a pie with four slices. Taking two slices of pie for yourself would mean that you have two out of the four. Hence, you represent it as 2/4.
- Fill half a glass of water. What do you see? 1/2 glass is full. Or 1/2 glass is empty. This 1/2 is fractions where 1 is the numerator that is, the number of parts we have. And 2 is the denominator, the number of parts the whole glass is divided into.
How to Convert Fractions To Decimals?
As we already learned enough about fractions, which are part of a whole. The decimals are the numbers expressed in a decimal form which represents fractions, after division.
For example, Fraction 1/2 can be written in decimal form as 0.5.
The best part of decimals are they can be easily used for any arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, etc. Whereas it is difficult sometimes to perform operations on fractions. Let us take an example to understand;
Example: Add 1/6 and 1/4.
solution: 1/6 = 0.17 and 1/4 = 0.25
Hence, on adding 0.17 and 0.25, we get;
How to Simplify Fractions?
To simplify the fractions easily, first, write the factors of both numerator and denominator. Then find the largest factor that is common for both numerator and denominator. Then divide both the numerator and the denominator by the greatest common factor (GCF) to get the reduced fraction, which is the simplest form of the given fraction. Now, let us consider an example to find the simplest fraction for the given fraction.
For example, take the fraction, 16/48
So, the factors of 16 are 1, 2, 4, 8, 16.
Similarly, the factors of 48 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 48.
Thus, the greatest common factor for 16 and 48 is 16.
i.e. GCF (16, 48) = 16.
Now, divide both the numerator and denominator of the given fraction by 16, we get
16/48 = (16/16) / (48/16) = 1/3.
Hence, the simplest form of the fraction 16/48 is 1/3.