What is 12/8 ?

Date: 27 Apr 1995 13:16:46 -0400
From: Ashleigh Bingham
Subject: Division

Hi, 

My name is Ashleigh N Bingham. We are studying division.
What is 12/8 ?

Date: 9 May 1995 21:58:37 -0400
From: Dr. Sydney
Subject: Re: Division

Hello Ashleigh!

To figure out what 12/8 is (in other words what is 12 divided by 8), you can
set up the problem as a long division problem:
 ___
8|12

How many times does 8 go into 1(the first digit in the number 12)?  0 times,
right?  After all, 8 is bigger than 1.  How many times does 8 go into 12
(the first 2 and only 2 digits in the number 12)?  Write the number of times
8 goes into 12 above the digit 2, and subtract that number times 8 from 12.
THe number you have left is the remainder.  See if you can figure out the
rest of this. If you have any more questions, feel free to write us back.

Here is another idea:  can you figure out when you would be dealing with
figuring out what 12 divided by 8 is?  In what situation would you care what
12 divided by 8 is?  I'll give you an example, and you try and think of some
more (you can get pretty creative on this, so let youself go nuts!).
Suppose you are at a birthday party, and there are 8 people total (including
yourself).  If you had a pizza that was cut into 12 slices, then dividing 12
by 8 tells you how many slices of pizza each of the 8 people should get.
Since you get a remainder, that means that each person at the part is going
to get a certain number of slices (that you have to determine from above)
and a fraction of another slice...

Can you think of other examples?  Write back if you have any more questions!

--Sydney, "Dr. Math"