tip of the day

[low_delta]

3/8 is not half of 5/8.

Comments

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

ugh math!
eyes...glazing...over....

[i.livejournal.com]

girl!

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

Girl hypnotized by numbers (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=cynnerth&itemid=570957&nc=15)

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Girl mesmerized by numbers (http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=melonaise&itemid=125614)

[melonaise.livejournal.com]

It's not toooo far off, though.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Too bad close wasn't good enough, in my layout.

[redthread.livejournal.com]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . . . . .. . . . duhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . . . . . . . . hrmph? Huh?!

[ravengirl.livejournal.com]

2.5 8s~ riiight?
heh.
5/16~ who's doing the math?!

[i.livejournal.com]

and a 2x4 is really 1-5/8x3-5/8

[vlinker.livejournal.com]

incorrect........the 2x4 (today) is 1 1/2" x 3 1/2"......it may have been a while since you pounded any nails

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

But they still make insulation to fit in a 4" wall, I'd bet.

Re:

[vlinker.livejournal.com]

no, it is made to fit a 3.5 or 5.5 inch cavity

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I figured they'd recognize the opportunity to save money along with the lumber industry.

torture by numbers

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

Make it stop!!

[vlinker.livejournal.com]

LOL...........why would anyone think so?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

That's a good question. Let me know if you ever find out. All I'm sure of is that my layout didn't work out, and it took me several minutes to figure out why a 5/8" roller didn't meet the bottom of a plate.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

3/8 is not half of ANYTHING.

[melonaise.livejournal.com]

What is this crazy talk??

Re:

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to cause any fraction among people!

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

They don't have fractions on your planet, do they?

Re:

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Okay... 3/8 is 1/2 of 6/8.

[banana.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of the metric system, but here's a case where it would have helped. You have to be a whole order of magnitude of a bigger idiot to get something like that wrong in millimetres.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Fractions work both ways, I guess. You don't really have to do any math to figure half of a fraction. 3/4 to 3/8. 5/8 to 5/16. It works by memory. But with math, you're more often required to do the math, and can't rely on a faulty memory.

[banana.livejournal.com]

You *did* do some maths to get from 5/8 to 5/16. It's just that you know well enough that it seems trivial: you know that you double the bottom number. Plenty of people go blank at that sort of thing. "How can it be right to make it smaller by making one of the numbers bigger?" I had to think about it for a few seconds because I hardly ever use fractions.

Tangent: I wonder why it's called "maths" in the UK but "math" in the US?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but doubling the bottom number is more of a memory thing. Doing math with single digit numbers is more memorization than mathematics.

I guess when you abbreviated "mathematics" you kept the abbreviation plural, and we just dropped the whole rest of the word. ?