Imagine a pizza. The pizza is 1. You cut the pizza into three slices: two slices are 1/4 (0.25) of the size of the pizza, the other slice is 2/4 (0.5) of the size of the pizza. We’ll ignore one of the 1/4 slices for this question, as we don’t need it.
Compare the 0.25 slice and the 0.5 slice, this problem is essentially asking “how many times can I fit the 0.5 slice into the 0.25 slice?”, the answer to this is obviously… 0, if you’re thinking in integers. Okay, but how much of the 0.5 slice could you fit in…? Half (0.5) of it. So 0.5 fits 0.5 times into 0.25.
Half of the slice that’s twice as big as the 0.25 slice fits into the 0.25 slice.
Edit: Gone back and read other comments and… Holy shit y’all, have some compassion for people who struggle with maths? Nobody is helped or motivated by snarky comments. A concept that is easy to grasp for you might be difficult to understand for someone else for a variety of reasons. Somewhat relevant xkcd.
This is just 1*2=2 with extra steps
That doesn’t make any sense to me but the calculator says it’s correct… Goddamit I’m going to be thinking about this all day now…
It’s confusing because it’s
dividing by "one over two (a half)"instead ofdividing by "two over one".Dividing by 2is the same acutting something in half.Dividing by a halfis the same as the inverse ofcutting something in half, which isdoubling it
x^2 / x = x ?? How alarming
As an Asian, I can’t understand why this keeps you up at night. Didn’t you learn this in like 2nd grade?
They didn’t teach why. American mathematics have been a rote learning exercise in classrooms for generations past.
