Thursday 23 April 2009

Which order do you multiply?

Still on the theme of manipulating equations, take one number times a complicated number squared, and then divided by that complicated number. How can you simplify this? It doesn't matter how complicated that number is, the process is always the same. Let's start by making it very simple.

What is 3 x 10 x 10 divided by 10. The answer is 30. To make it a little more complicated what is 3(10.75 x 10.75) divided by 10.75. Don't be daunted as I can still do this in my head. The answer is found if you don't multiply the numbers in the brackets. You divide one of the bigger numbers by the same number in the denominator and you end up with 1. So the same equation is 3 x 10.75. I don't have a calculator but the answer is 32.25. If I had multiplied the numbers in the brackets first I would have needed a calculator. Keep things as simple as possible.

In this case the brackets don't mean do this first. It is my way of writing 'squared' You know it can't be anything to do with order because whenever you multiply or divide, order doesn't matter. 10 x 7 x 3 all divided by 3 gives exactly the same answer whichever order you choose. Try it and see.

That sums it up.

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