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Course: MAP Recommended Practice > Unit 32
Lesson 17: Equivalent fractionsEquivalent fractions with visuals
Sal uses same-sized wholes to show equivalent fractions.
Want to join the conversation?
- So only fractions with an even denominator can be one half of a whole number?(83 votes)
- No, you can actually have an uneven denominator, only if you have decimals (that may be a little trickier). So, for example, 0.5/1, 1.5/3, 2.5/5, 3.5/7, 4.5/9 and so on. They are all equivalent to each other, even though the denominator is odd. But if you were in a maths exam and one question asked you to represent a fraction in lowest terms, you can't put in decimals (because you can't simplify it any more and that it would keep on going forever if they allowed you to simplify fractions even further into decimals). Hope you have learned from that!(49 votes)
- What is an easy way to find out if two fractions are equal? The way Sal did it seams quite long and I feel like there is a faster way than drawing the picture.(37 votes)
- You could simplify the fractions to see if they are equal, for example
Is 1/2 equal to 6/12?
1/2 can't be simplified any more.
Moving on to 6/12, you can divide both the numerator and the denominator ( as said by Asi) by 2.
You get 3/6. This can be divided by three
You get 1/2.
So 1/2 and 6/12 are equal.
You could also divide by 6 and do the above in one step.
Another method is cross multiplication.
In this method, you multiply the numerator of one fraction by the denominator of the other fraction. Do the same for the numerator of the other fraction. If the answers are equal, so are the fractions.
Here is an example for you ( using the same fractions as before):
Are 1/2 and 6/12 equal?
You multiply 1 and 12 ( numerator and the denominator of the other fraction are multiplied).
You get 12
Now you multiply 6 with 2. (you are doing the same with the other fraction)
you get 12 again
The fractions are equal(44 votes)
- why are the bars put in random places(6 votes)
- Where the bars are doesn't matter, but the amount of equal sized bars matter because if you have a certain amount of bars, wherever you put them, they still have the same quantity.(23 votes)
- "If you get what's in the video you don't have to watch it." I'm trying to get these energy points my man.(8 votes)
- true but if you skip the whole video and if youre like at 8 points in the video you will stay there(2 votes)
- lol i cant do this :((0 votes)
- I suggest looking for more video on youtube. Sometimes you need a different point of view to understand something(7 votes)
- don't ask us 4ht grade questions were only 3rd graders(1 vote)
- i use same-sized wholes to show equivalent fractions.am i right?(1 vote)
- can it also be done in number lines?(1 vote)
- which part of the fraction is shaded(1 vote)
- this is very hard(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So if
this bar right over here represents one whole, so the whole thing is shaded
in with the purple color, my question to you is,
which of these other bars, and there might be more than
one of them, represent 1/2? So our goal, our goal is to see 1/2. So once again, like always, pause the video and try it on your own. Okay, so you've tried it on
your own, let's work through it. If we're thinking about halves, and we just have one of them, let me just try to draw another bar here, it would look something like this. I'll try to draw it pretty close to these other bars here. I would divide it into two equal sections, and I would only care or I would really fill in one of them, that
would be 1/2 of this figure. Actually, these sections
don't look quite equal, that looks a little bit off... It's pretty good, I
think you get the idea, that my intent is to
draw these to be equal. Then, this right over here would be 1/2. Now, none of these are
divided into halves. This one over here is
divided into fourths, this one over here is divided into one, two, three, four, five,
so it's divided into fifths, this one over here is divided into one, two, three, four, five, six, so it's divided into sixths,
this is divided into thirds. We're going to have to really relate 1/2 to other - to breaking up your whole into different amounts,
not just breaking it up into two equal sections,
breaking it up into four equal sections, five equal sections, six equal sections, and
three equal sections. How do we do that? The easiest thing might be to just break this one up into
four equal sections. You break this up into
four equal sections, that's just taking each of these two and then breaking those up into two. That's one equal section, and another, let me use that blue color
actually, 'cause that's my... That's an equal section over here, and this is an equal section, so this is the same thing as 1/2. Notice I didn't change
how much I shaded in, I just divided it into more sections. So we see that 1/2 is the exact same thing as two out of four. Well, how many do we have right over here? We have one, two out of
four, so this is one, two out of four, and this
is one, two out of four, so 2/4 and 1/2 are the same,
these two are equivalent. Now this might not be obvious, but if you took this
block right over here, and if you were to move this one over, and so this one is painted
and this one isn't, they would look the same,
so maybe that would help to see that this also has
1/2 of the block filled in. So this one is definitely 1/2. Now let's think about fifths. So let me, well there's
two ways I could do it. Let me draw fifths, and
this right over here is 3/5, so might as well just write it down. This is 3/5, this is 3/6, and this is 1/3. Let me draw 3/5 right below this. Let me draw, I keep wanting
to change the color around, I'm using a new art tool
and color changing isn't coming as naturally as my old one. This right over here, let
me divide it into fifths the best I can, so one,
two, three, four, five, and we're going to assume that these are equal sections, I know
my drawing isn't perfect, but if we have 3/5, where
are we going to get to? We're going to get to one, two, three. One way to think about it,
this, what I just drew, is just a rearrangement of this, I just took the three filled in sections and put them all to the left. So I have one, two,
three, and when you look at it this way, it's clear
that 3/5 is more than 1/2. If we were to try to put the
3/5 onto this one right here, it would get us about this far, so 3/5 would go all the way over there. So 3/5 is definitely not
the same thing as 1/2. Now what about 3/6? Let's think about that a little bit. Can we take - let me draw
another one of these things that I have to keep drawing
over and over again. We already know that if I split this into two equal pieces, I shade
in one of them, that's 1/2. This right over here is 1/2. Could I turn this into sixths? If I take each of these
two and I split them into three equal pieces,
then I'm going to have two times six pieces, so
I'm going to have sixths. Let me do that, so I'm
going to use my blue color, there you go, and then there you go, I took each of the two and I split them into three, and now I have six pieces. I haven't changed how much
I shaded in, I have now - it was 1/2 of the entire bar, but now, when I think in terms of sixths, it's one, two, 3/6, 3/6 is
the exact same thing as 1/2. We have one, two, 3/6, and once again, if you took these two and
shifted them over here, you would get something that looks very much like that or like this. This right over here is
the same thing as 1/2. Now what about 1/3? All right, I think you
see where this is going. And always, you should just feel free to pause the video and try
to work it out on your own, or frankly, if you get
what's going on in the video, you don't have to watch it! (laughs) All right, so let's divide it into thirds, and we're talking about 1/3. We're talking about 1/3 right over here, and very clearly you see
that 1/3 is less than 3/6, and 3/6 is the same thing as 1/2. 1/2 would take you about this far, would take you that far,
1/3 is less than that. So 1/3 is not equal to 1/2. Hopefully you found that fun.