Expert: Bobby Soltani - 12/21/2004

Question
Hello:



Why does a fraction represent or indicate division?  

Example: 2/5 = 2 divided by 5

I know that in order to determine the decimal for a fraction, the numerator is divided by the denominator.

I thank you for your reply.


Answer
Hi,

A fraction is the number of parts (numerator) of the whole (denominator).  For instance if you have one piece of a pie that is cut into four pieces, you ate 1/4 of the pie.  Or, you ate 1/4 = 0.25 = 25 % of the pie.  A fraction is used to represent a portion of an entirety.  For instance,
(1/4)*16 = 4
and
(0.25)*16 = 4

So, the fraction is just another way of writing a decimal and vice versa.  If you have 0.2, you can write it as (1/5) instead.

Bobby