Fractions v. Decimals

[Khandro]

Though I have seen U.K. motorway signs that read 'Exit 15, 2 1/3 miles' (which must cause puzzlement to foreign visitors), overall and since decimalization of the pound, we seem to abandon more and more the use of fractions which are often an inefficient means of mathmatical notation and lead to mathmatical infinities, for example, if you divide 10 by three in base ten you get 3.3 recurring (infinitely). Equally you could say that the answer is 3 1/3 with no infinite recurrence, - end of story! Why are modern scientists, mathematicians and everyone else so ready to abandon fractions ?

[jackthehat]

Which is wholly unrealistic............is it not ?

Decimal pi to its usual 8 places is an approximation, too.

What was your point exactly ?

[jomifl]

fercrisake, I remember living with fractions, life is too short. Thank appropriate deity for decimalisation. It has made life so much easier.

[Hymie]

My Casio fx-19 scientific calculator gives the answer to ChuckFickens maths question as 11 and 3/55.

It (the fx-19) handles fractions, but should the calculated answer (in its fractional representation) exceed the 8 digit display – then the answer is shown (expressed) as a decimal.

[society]

Think I'll stick with my pen, paper and MY brain; not a calculator.

[mibn2cweus]

Ah hell! Will somebody just move the freakin' sign fercrisake?!

[Khandro]

I'm not certain what the last post means, but like an electric fire, this thread seems to be generating more heat than light; I have been accused of idiocy and even the sainted Chuck has been insulted !

[boxtops]

I think mbn's post suggests that we take down the offending road sign which started this off!

[THECORBYLOON]

Strictly speaking, when giving measurements, fractions are not always the same as decimals. If I said something is 50.5 foot long that implies I could also measure it if it were 50.4 or 50.6 foot long. If I said it is 50 ½ foot long, that means I could only measure it to the nearest ½ foot. It’s the same with old athletics records, they would often use 1/5th of a second as the time could be measured only to that accuracy. If a time were recorded as 10.2 seconds rather than 10 1/5th seconds, the former implies it could be measured to nearest 0.1 seconds.