What Happens If I... » math http://blog.arlim.org Kim Wallmark's Technical Wanderings Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:45:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Misuse of Arithmetic http://blog.arlim.org/2009/10/01/misuse-of-arithmetic/ http://blog.arlim.org/2009/10/01/misuse-of-arithmetic/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:53:58 +0000 Kim Wallmark http://blog.arlim.org/?p=68 Many people know about crazy fraction reduction: 16/64 is 1/4 by normal arithmetic, but if you cancel the 6s, you get 1/4 as well. Right answer, wrong method.

I was just introduced to the inverse of crazy fraction reduction. 32/24 = 4/3, but if you cancel the 2s, 32/24 = 3/4. For some reason, this is more alarming to me than standard crazy fraction reduction.

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