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#fractions

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Assistance request + Mah brain math is broken.

If I have a pdf that printed at 100% gives an output of 1/3 size - how much do I have to reduce the percentage to print the same thing at 1/4 size?

Thankyou in advance.

[No jokes ta, this is a real math question that is causing me headaches .. ]

The Third-of-a-Pound Burger flop

"Ah, fractions. Who needs 'em? Not burger devotees. According to Canadian news outlet CBC, the famous McDonald's Quarter Pounder burger once had a larger cousin, the Third-of-a-Pound Burger...."

That's why it's a bad idea to argue online.

snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/thi
#math #fractions #doTheMath #EllieKPosts

Snopes.com · Did Third-of-a-Pound Burger Fail Because People Didn't Understand Fractions?By Bethania Palma
Replied in thread

@mrsbeanbag @georgetakei Somewhat related:

A&W's 1/3 pounder failed, even though it offered more meat for the same price as McDonald's' Quarter Pounder, because people saw the fractions 1/3 and 1/4 and thought they were getting a worse deal -- 3 is less than 4.

They bounced back with the 3/9 lb. burger. "If sold out, a 2/6 lb. Burger can be specially made at no extra charge."

Dear @echo_pbreyer, dear @piratenpartei@piratenpartei.social

I want to #vote for a party (and list members) at the #EU #elections that is most effective in influencing EU policies towards #privacy friendliness and #antisurveilance.

#Fractions in the #EUparlament are powerful institutions to gian access to committees and (inside-)information and to influence #EUpolicy.
What fraction are you currently part of/will your successors be part of?

#eu #europawahl #piraten @piratenpartei@pirati.ca

I just managed to write a #Python programme to convert between the #Phugpa Tibetan #calendar and Julian Days, which means the Phugpa calendar can now be converted to and from any other calendar (that I have coded so far).

This ended up being later than I expected, and the Python is really freaking slow, but at least it works. I might need to completely rewrite it in #Fortran at some point, which will be tricky because Fortran doesn't support #fractions. Maybe #Rust does?

"If we can cut the pie into two equal parts, there are twice as many pieces as before, but each is only half as big. And if we cut it into four, then each piece is only 1/4 as big. And so on. That's how #fractions work," Aldo's dad explained.

Aldo's eyes were shining. "So fractions make more of a thing!"

"Well, sort of," his dad said cautiously. "More in number, less in size."

Continued thread

BTW, when thinking about fractions and decimal expansions, I always want to mention the Egyptian numeral system, and in particular the excellent book "Count Like An Egyptian":

google.com/books/edition/Count

The problem with our "p/q" notation for rationals is that it's hard to compare and approximate them. Say: which is bigger, 17/43 or 11/29? Hard to see, right?

But if I ask the same question for 0.3953488 and 0.3793103, it's easy.

Now think of approximation. Think of 17/43 in your typical quotitive (I think) model: you divide a circle into 43 equal sectors and you have 17 of them. But who can divide a pizza into 43 slices?? I want a smaller denominator that gets me close to 17/43.

Egyptian fractions make both tasks easy. I forget the details of how 17/43 would be done, but it turns out 17/43 is very close to 3/8 + 1/50. And 11/29 is very close to 3/8 + 1/250. So you can:

* see which is bigger;

* look at the denominators of the second-order terms and see how good your approximation is

Nice! But let's talk about infinity and Lovecraft.

3/n

Google BooksCount Like an EgyptianA lively collection of fun and challenging problems in ancient Egyptian mathThe mathematics of ancient Egypt was fundamentally different from our math today. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't a primitive forerunner of modern mathematics. In fact, it can’t be understood using our current computational methods. Count Like an Egyptian provides a fun, hands-on introduction to the intuitive and often-surprising art of ancient Egyptian math. David Reimer guides you step-by-step through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and more. He even shows you how fractions and decimals may have been calculated—they technically didn’t exist in the land of the pharaohs. You’ll be counting like an Egyptian in no time, and along the way you’ll learn firsthand how mathematics is an expression of the culture that uses it, and why there’s more to math than rote memorization and bewildering abstraction.Reimer takes you on a lively and entertaining tour of the ancient Egyptian world, providing rich historical details and amusing anecdotes as he presents a host of mathematical problems drawn from different eras of the Egyptian past. Each of these problems is like a tantalizing puzzle, often with a beautiful and elegant solution. As you solve them, you’ll be immersed in many facets of Egyptian life, from hieroglyphs and pyramid building to agriculture, religion, and even bread baking and beer brewing.Fully illustrated in color throughout, Count Like an Egyptian also teaches you some Babylonian computation—the precursor to our modern system—and compares ancient Egyptian mathematics to today’s math, letting you decide for yourself which is better.