The idea of using fractions in practical situations dates back to ancient times, namely to 1800 BC in Egypt, when various symbols were employed to use scraps in practical problems. The English term “bit” originates from the Latin word “fraction,” which meant to divide anything into more manageable sections.
The notion of fractions is fundamental to mathematics and has some relevance to the actual world. From slicing a pizza into two halves to using them in architecture and research, fractions have found widespread use in various professions.
When it comes to conducting different operations on fractions, such as addition, subtraction, and multiplying fractions, students need to practice these operations on scraps to apply them in real-world circumstances.
Learning fractions is straightforward, but doing these operations requires practice. Students with a solid understanding of fractions will have an easier time comprehending mathematical concepts such as speed, velocity, ratios, and proportions.
It is crucial to teach fractions through real-life examples. For instance, you might utilize day-to-day experiences to illustrate the many ideas of fractions in activities such as baking, dividing pizza pieces among friends, and so on. It is vital to have a deep comprehension of the basic principles behind fractions to be able to grasp them.
A portion of the total is referred to as a fraction. To put it another way, a fraction is a number that may be written as the equivalent of a whole number.
Everyday Uses of Fractions
This article covers some of the real-life uses in which fractions play an essential role:
Cooking Yummy Dishes
It may surprise you, but it is relatively straightforward. Have you ever seen a program where people cook? It’s possible that you heard on the broadcast to get a bowl and put a quarter teaspoon of this item and three-quarters of this flour in it.
You must have encountered these phrases, maybe even when reading a recipe. If you do not understand the notion of fractions, it will be challenging to communicate specific numbers while cooking. Amateur uses this idea to cook up to the most seasoned culinary experts so they can accurately measure and compose their dishes.
Various Fields of Science
The use of fractions is further expanded when used in technological applications. When counting items or objects, most scientific fields use the idea of fractions. Let’s say you want to determine how many bacteria colonies are present in a certain plate, but you have more than one kind of bacteria.
We can indicate the number of bacteria of a particular species present in a given volume using fractions. For instance, three-quarters of species of a bacteria population are on the plate. Because of this, we can discern between the various species, making the job much more straightforward. Additionally, it may assist us in estimating the reproduction and survival rate of the bacteria.
Construction
Measurement is done using standardized units such as inches and feet. Let’s say you want the carpenter to build you a table, and you give him dimensions like six feet, two and a half inches, and a quarter of an inch long.
The carpenter uses the notion of fractions to break down that measurement and cut the plywood following your specifications. These measures are impossible to carry out if one does not understand the idea of the fraction.
Furniture and Home Equipment
Measurement in fractions is required for the construction of any furniture. A large piece of plywood will need to be chopped down to create a study table that is proportionate to the space available in your room.
Let’s estimate that your table is probably 5 feet, 4 inches, and 1/4 of an inch long. If the dimensions are slightly off, your table may not be able to fit in the space you have available.
Tailoring a Dress
To appropriately tailor an item, accurate measuring of the fabric is essential. To produce your school shirt, it’s possible that you’ll need a meter and a half.
The length of your home’s curtains is maybe two meters and a quarter. The precisely tailored garment is always the result of using the correct fraction.
Creating a Timetable
When creating a study schedule for a topic and dividing it into sections for more manageable chunks, you are essentially employing fractions to do the task. For example, if we focus on five out of ten chapters in Physics, this decision may be expressed as the fraction 5/10; moreover, fractions continue to apply.
Calculating Times
Simply putting out a study schedule for a topic and slicing it up into manageable chunks for yourself is a straightforward use of fractional mathematics. For example, if we focus on studying just five of the ten chapters in Physics, we can easily express this decision using the fraction 5/10.
Sports and Fitness
When analyzing the performance of a specific player or team, fractions are usually utilized as a metric of choice.
When calculating our body mass index (BMI), which tells us whether or not our weight falls within a healthy range for our height and height, we employ fractions.
Engineering
Without engineering, the contemporary world would not have any buildings, automobiles, airplanes, or industrial facilities. Engineering is the basis of the modern world.
The fact that most university engineering programs require students to have completed mathematics up to the advanced level and that many of those programs also recommend students meet mathematics up to the advanced level demonstrates how essential mathematics is to studying engineering. One use of fractions is in the calculation of air-to-fuel ratios.
Both components are required for the mixture of gasoline and air to burn properly inside an automobile engine. The air-fuel ratio that is theoretically ideal for a gasoline engine is somewhere around 14.7. However, this may be changed to affect driving performance and fuel efficiency. Engineers will build their machines such that the air-to-fuel ratio is optimized for maximum performance.
Distribution
One of the essential applications of fractions is distribution. When it comes to distribution, we use scraps regularly without giving them much thought. We put it to use in various contexts, including educational institutions and institutions of higher learning, commercial and retail settings, athletics, and education.
For instance, a teacher could only cover two-thirds (two-thirds) of a chapter from the book they are now teaching. There is a possibility that a cricket match might be won in three-quarters of the allotted time.
Technology
The application of fractions has a considerably broader scope in the world of research and technology. Most scientists use the concept of fractions if they are measuring very tiny or very big volumes.
Assume that, since you have many different kinds of bacteria, you have decided to conduct a census of the number of bacterial colonies that may be found in a particular container. We use fractions to express the total number of microorganisms that fall into a specific group inside a word.
Conclusion
There are fractions of everything. This could make little sense to us at first since when we initially study arithmetic, we focus on the more straightforward ideas and the entire numbers system. Our brains are conditioned to search for what we have previously been taught, even when we are exposed to more complex mathematical concepts as we go along in our schooling.
Consequently, we tend to disregard the existence of fractions, even though they are almost everywhere and all the time. As a result, having a solid foundation and an awareness of how it may be used in the real world is incredibly important.