Ahh, fractions and word problems, the bane of my education (seriously, why do we bother with fractions when decimals are easier to compute and express?)
well, no, it’s understood that a third is .333 to infinity, so .333+.333+.333 does equal 1 for any use not requiring precision to the point of it mattering that it was actually .33333335 when measured.
It came from it not being actually .333 to infinity when measured in the required engineering precision i was talking about. It’s literally a “common use” mathematical convention (you clearly are unaware of) that three times .333 is one. Solves a lot of problems due to a failure of the notation.
You knows when a person informs you of a convention people use to solve a problem created by notation, you could just fucking learn instead of arguing stupidity.
People have already commented on fractions, there’s a lot of math that is way easier to keep accurate by leaving in fractional form as it goes.
For word problems, done correctly, the math is pointless if you can’t map it to more realistic scenarios. In terms of applying math to the real world, it’s supremely rare that the world just spits out the equation ready for you to solve, the ability to distill a scenario described by prose to a mathemetical solution is critical. Problem is when they are handled incorrectly and have ambiguous solutions or parameters, but dealing with kids’ homework, this is pretty rare, though it’s admittedly utterly infuriating when it comes up.
The higher the level of the course I was taking, the less test markers cared about the actual final answer. If you used the correct equations, simplifying the final answer to a faction rather than a decimal or leaving constants like pi and e in there was good enough for full marks.
Generally more accurate, too, because you’re not rounding the number but leaving it as the true value because 1/3 != 0.333333. It’s better to do it this way if there’s multiple steps, too, since you can gather or cancel out like terms if you leave them as variables instead of converting and rounding to some decimal.
Ahh, fractions and word problems, the bane of my education (seriously, why do we bother with fractions when decimals are easier to compute and express?)
Man, if you can’t understand fractions, you don’t actually understand the math, you’re just trained to use a formula.
I understand fractions, I simply doubt their utility.
Saying shit like that implies you don’t really get that they are the same thing.
For example, they allow you to write
1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1
Which is not possible in decimal
well, no, it’s understood that a third is .333 to infinity, so .333+.333+.333 does equal 1 for any use not requiring precision to the point of it mattering that it was actually .33333335 when measured.
No. You wrote .333
If you want to precisely write to infinity you write 1/3.
Holy fuck. Where did that 5 come from?
It came from it not being actually .333 to infinity when measured in the required engineering precision i was talking about. It’s literally a “common use” mathematical convention (you clearly are unaware of) that three times .333 is one. Solves a lot of problems due to a failure of the notation.
3 times 0.333 is 0.999 not 1.
Saying it equals 1 may be a common engineering convention, but it is mathematically incorrect.
There is no failure of notation if fractions are used, which is why I gave this example of usefulness.
You knows when a person informs you of a convention people use to solve a problem created by notation, you could just fucking learn instead of arguing stupidity.
Hate to break it to you but anything less than a whole is a fraction of a whole thing. Decimals, too, are bits of a whole.
People have already commented on fractions, there’s a lot of math that is way easier to keep accurate by leaving in fractional form as it goes.
For word problems, done correctly, the math is pointless if you can’t map it to more realistic scenarios. In terms of applying math to the real world, it’s supremely rare that the world just spits out the equation ready for you to solve, the ability to distill a scenario described by prose to a mathemetical solution is critical. Problem is when they are handled incorrectly and have ambiguous solutions or parameters, but dealing with kids’ homework, this is pretty rare, though it’s admittedly utterly infuriating when it comes up.
The higher the level of the course I was taking, the less test markers cared about the actual final answer. If you used the correct equations, simplifying the final answer to a faction rather than a decimal or leaving constants like pi and e in there was good enough for full marks.
Generally more accurate, too, because you’re not rounding the number but leaving it as the true value because 1/3 != 0.333333. It’s better to do it this way if there’s multiple steps, too, since you can gather or cancel out like terms if you leave them as variables instead of converting and rounding to some decimal.