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From: gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Fractions/division (was Re: Student preparedness)
Message-ID: <196@maths.tcd.ie>
Date: 5 Jan 89 10:22:29 GMT
References: <605@ucrmath.EDU> <6578@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills)
Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin
Lines: 15

In article <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> verma@mahimahi.cs.ucla.edu (Rodent of Darkness) writes:
>	Speaking of division and "fractions" once had a teacher who
>	said that division and fractions had nothing to do with each
>	other.  To this day I have no idea as to why she said this.
>

Strictly speaking they are not any more similar than irrationals and square
roots. A fraction is a pair of numbers (numerator,denominator) used to denote
a rational number. It is an object. Division is a function which works on any
usual number system which "includes the rationals" e.g. irrationals, complex
numbers, quaternions. The similarity is that rationals were created/discovered
to enable you to do division at all.

Graham W.                     
TCD, Ireland.