Expert: Lynn Houston - 9/18/2008

Question
Hello:

Why does a fraction indicate dividing the numerator by the denominator, as in 2/5 represents 2 divided by 5 equals 0.4.

I thank you for any helpful reply that you may offer.

Answer
I'm not sure how to answer that... the bar is just another way to write a division sign.  If you have one sixth (1/6) of a pie, you'd have the 1 slice of a whole pie (1) divided into 6 parts.  If you want to know exactly how big that slice is, you'd divide 1 by 6 to get the decimal.  Does any of this help?