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Expressing a Fraction as a Decimal


Date: 8/19/96 at 20:28:16
From: Anonymous
Subject: Express Fraction as a Decimal

How do you write 3/8 as a decimal?  Please explain.

Date: 8/20/96 at 11:40:35
From: Doctor Anthony
Subject: Re: Express Fraction as a Decimal

A decimal like 0.2345 means in fraction notation 2345/10000

So to express 3/8 as a decimal, we shall need to change the fraction 
so that it has one each of 10, 100, 1000, 10000 etc. as the 
denominator.  

You do this by dividing 8 into 3

          0.375 
         --------
        8|3 0
          2 4
          ----
            60
            56
           ----
             40
             40
            -----
              0

and so 3/8 is  the same as 375/1000

An alternative could be to find by what factor you multiply 8 to get 
a multiple of 10, and then use the same factor to multiply 3.  
Thus 

8*125 = 1000    and 3*125 = 375  so we get 375/1000 = 0.375

-Doctor Anthony,  The Math Forum
 Check out our web site!  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/

Associated Topics:
Elementary Fractions

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