Maths for Mums and Dads by Mike Askew

Author:Mike Askew
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409089131
Publisher: Random House

Simplifying fractions

If you want to share a pizza between three people, the easiest thing to do is divide it into thirds:

But that’s not how most people divide up pizzas. A third of a pizza is too large and has a tendency to droop when you pick it up. Instead, by instinct, we divide it into six pieces, and give each person two sixths. It is so obvious that two sixths and one third are the same thing, that it seems unnecessary to have to spell this out. Yet this is the basis of the whole idea of reducing a fraction to its simplest terms: . The notion of simplifying fractions crops up all over the place in maths, and the reason for developing the skill of simplifying fractions is that it makes calculations so much simpler.

The secret to simplifying a fraction is to look for numbers that will divide into the top and bottom of the fraction (the highest common factor – see Multiplication and Division). For example, simplify :

The top and bottom both divide by 5. So this is the same as .

Alternatively, you can write out the numerator and denominator in terms of their factors, so:

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