#fractions

[mcnostril]

Today on mcnostril.com: Fractions are difficult.

Chapter 4 – Page 23 | mcnostril comics

[sportsandlaughs]

[xponentialdesign]

Thirteen evenly spaced black stripes are sequentially subdivided from bottom to top by evenly spaced blocks, increasing in number row by row. Built entirely in vanilla After Effects (no plugins), the sequence was exported to GIF through Photoshop. A 10-second pause is introduced at frame 150, holding the moment when all rows reach full subdivision.

Title: Equal Space

Medium: GIF 1280p-299frames-50fps-5shades-151Kb

After Effects source file

[laughingsquid]

Personified Natural Numbers Learn About Mysterious Fractions in an Amusing 1971 Educational Cartoon

[talkingnumbers]

Bigger Fractions

Sunil Singh posted the top image, so I had to...

[jhsharman]

"A Clean Slate"

Why so eager to clean the blackboard, I do not know. But it is odd that a heart shaped “B + A” has been added. I guess they just thought there was too much empty space, or that some non-academic item needed to be added to accurately place the characters’ non studious state of mind.

[big-tiddy-goth-ghoulfriend]

a pet peeve of mine is when ratios are presented in "parts" - usually in recipes, especially cocktails - and they involve fractions. The point of ratios is to give a scalable recipe that allows you to make as much or as little as you want; it's not for exact measurements but *relative* ones. If it's written correctly, you don't even need to know what to measure with. Using the classic margarita ratio as an example:

1 part lime juice

1 part simple syrup

2 parts triple sec

3 parts tequila

With that recipe, you know how much of each thing to use relative to the other ingredients. What size are the parts? Doesn't matter. How much margarita do you want? Measure with a shotglass if you're making one drink, a full glass if you're making a pitcher for a party. Hell, measure with a 5-gallon bucket if you're trying to take a bath in it. As long as you use the same container to measure each part, you'll have a good margarita in ten ounces or a thousand. The adaptability is the point.

Which is exactly why this ratio (not for margaritas this time, but for soy sauce marinade) doesn't work:

1 part soy sauce

0.5 parts sugar

3 parts water

How do you do half a part? Half of what? Half is already a relative measurement, normally the benchmark is "a cup". I can't just eyeball half of a 5-gallon bucket and be sure that it's accurate.

Ratios are percentages so you can't put percentage measurements in them already. The smallest amount in your ratio needs to be one part. Scale the others accordingly.

It should be 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part sugar, 6 parts water.

Similarly, if your ratio is something weird like 1 part, 2 parts, 3.5 parts, well then you need to multiply to eliminate the fraction. That's now a 2/4/7 ratio my friend. Having your smallest component be "1 part" isn't as important as eliminating fractional parts.

[humor-experiment-lab]

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