Good knowledge of multiplying Fractions!
Before you start this lesson on multiplying fractions, I recommend that you become familiar with the multiplication table
Multiplying fractions is very easy. However, I would like to introduce the topic with a challenging example.
Say that you bought a medium pizza and your pizza has 8 slices.
If someone eats half of your pizza, or 4 slices, you are left with
4 / 8
From the illustration below, you can also see that the leftover is the same as
1 / 2
If you decide that you are only going to eat 1 slice out of the 4 slices remaining, you are eating
1 / 4of the leftover
Remember that the leftover is
1 / 2
You can also argue that you only ate 1 slice out of 8 slices or
1 / 8
Thus, we can see that eating 1/4 of 1/2 is the same as eating 1/8
Another way to get
1 / 8is to perform the following multiplication:
We get this answer by multiplying the number on top (numerator): 1 × 1 = 1
and by multiplying the number at the bottom (denominator) 4 × 2 = 8
This is an interesting result, but all you need to remember is the following:
When you multiply fractions, multiply the numerators together
Then multiply the denominators together.
Notice also that the word 'of' means multiplication
Sometimes, it is a good idea to simplify the fractions before multiplying.
Take a look at the following example:
Divide the numerator and the denominator by 10
Divide the numerator and the denominator by 5
This way, it is easier to do the multiplication to get
1 / 10
Multiplying mixed numbers
Multiply fractions calculator
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