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Why do we use fractions?

What are some life situations that will be needed for fractions?

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John’s Answer

Fractions are pretty cool, you know! They help us understand how much of something we need, have, or desire. Let's look at some real-life examples of how fractions make our lives easier:

Cooking up a storm: When you're following a recipe, fractions are your best friends. They help you adjust the ingredients if you're cooking for fewer people than the recipe suggests.

Scoring the game: Fractions are super handy when you want to analyze how well a player or team is performing.

Study time: Fractions are great at breaking down a subject into manageable chunks for studying.

Counting coins: Adding up money is a breeze with fractions. They make it quick and straightforward.

Baking: Fractions tell you how much of an ingredient to use.

Telling time: Each minute is a fraction of the hour.

Money: Most currencies contain fractions in the form of decimals.

Splitting a bill: You can use fractions to divide a bill when eating out with friends.

Calculating a discounted price: You can use fractions to calculate the discounted price of an object on sale.
Thank you comment icon Loved reading this, thanks! lisa
Thank you comment icon Great explanation Michel Davis
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Jerome’s Answer

I am in sales and we use fractions all of the time to understand what our year over year growth is. Have an easy to understand percentage that can be shared allows everyone to quickly understand our progress and if we are meeting expectations.
Thank you comment icon Thanks, can't wait to put this advice into action! lisa
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Leonard’s Answer

Fractions really help with "Extent of Condition". What does that mean?
It helps explain how good, or bad, is a situation. Most known for percentages in business reporting for goals and success measurements. ,Business people also want to know how good or bad is something that they see.
Examples:
* 3 out of 5 (60%) invoices have problems getting paid on time.
* 1 in 4 (1/4) of employees have taken more than 7 sick days a year.
* 3 out of 4 (3/4) of users in CareerVilliage ask more than one question a month on the platform.

Have fun!
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Michel’s Answer

In medicine we use more stats to figure out and determine associations of diseases. Not so much fractions but more risk associations. So instead of telling someone smoking is bad we can tell them if you smoke you are 11 times more likely to end up with lung cancer when compared to the general population. Now on top of that if you had exposure to asbestos during your lifetime that is a combined risk factor which increases your likelihood of ending up with cancer by 20 times.

That long explanation goes into why fractions are important. So lets say we did our study and we created a study and found that in a population of 100 people 1 non smoker develops lung cancer. We take the fraction 1/100 and we get a rate of 0.01. Now lets say in a population of 100 smokers 11 develop lung cancer we have a rate of 0.11. We now take these numbers and divide them 0.11/0.01 and get 11 which is how we determine you have a 11 times higher chance of developing cancer. This number means more to people then all of these other numbers and we had to use fractions in order to determine them.

That all being said this same number can be interpreted many ways but making it easier for general public to understand is a big responsibility of researchers. Saying you have a 1100% chance sounds scary but is hard to grasp. Saying that last explanation extremely confusing and i’m sure with my explanation I left out details that maybe a math wizard can poke holes into. But 11 times more likely is a tangible number for people to realize what they are doing is creating a big risk to their well being.

Hopefully this makes sense. Not all jobs will use fractions, but having a basic understanding can be helpful in some fields of study.

Great question.
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Gaurav’s Answer

We use fraction because the law of ratios allow us to understand trends better than looking at raw levels because they can be influenced by several different factors. For example, if you looked at overall number of deaths from COVID in a large country, such as the United States, compared to a country with a significantly smaller population, the results can be misleading. However, if you look at it compared to per 10,000 people, it allows you to understand relatively how you are trending. Hope this helps!
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Kim’s Answer

I find myself using fractions when working on my home - centering pull handles on a drawer, hanging wall art, etc.

Also, because I am active in municipal politics, fractions come into play when figuring tax rates. For example, our sales tax is 2%. 1/2 of one percent goes to support the golf course. which, is actually 1/4 of all sales tax revenue proceeds. Sales tax can be levied in 1/8 increments of one percent, - so if we want to reduce the golf course tax from 1/2 of one percent we could lower it to 3/8, 1/4, or 1/8 of one percent

I am still perplexed though at how a half moon occurs 1/4 (and 3/4) of the way through the lunar cycle!
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