I'm failing 1st grade math

[Aloha_Shooter]

Fractions are not important, decimals are important. Engineers and machinists do not use fractions. Only trades where accurate measurements are not critical use them like in carpentry.

As a systems engineer with a background in computer science, I would dispute this statement. An understanding of the fractions involved are VERY important in understanding the limitations of decimal (and more importantly digital) representations of real world problems. The actual computation will be done using digital representations with decimal output but I prefer the actual fractional equations whereever possible.

[clodhopper]

That sounds more like a disability than a preference.

[UncleDave]

As a systems engineer with a background in computer science, I would dispute this statement. An understanding of the fractions involved are VERY important in understanding the limitations of decimal (and more importantly digital) representations of real world problems. The actual computation will be done using digital representations with decimal output but I prefer the actual fractional equations whereever possible.

I can concede that point. I was using a bit of hyperbole. However, most of the engineers that I have worked with, mostly mechanical and electrical use the decimal for calculation. And in machining it was all done to the 1000th or 10,000th in Imperial or done in metric, which is what I used mostly.

[ray1970]

You fraction lovers can take your 11/40 and 37/64 and other such nonsense and stick it in a bong and smoke it.

[BladesNBarrels]

Oh yes! Tom Lehrer.
I learned the elements from his song:



There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered.

[Irving]

I don't understand .5 of that.

[BladesNBarrels]

I don't understand .5 of that.

But you get the pi of it!

[Duman]

Wow.

[MrPrena]

As a systems engineer with a background in computer science, I would dispute this statement. An understanding of the fractions involved are VERY important in understanding the limitations of decimal (and more importantly digital) representations of real world problems. The actual computation will be done using digital representations with decimal output but I prefer the actual fractional equations whereever possible.

Yes
Numerically decimals are better. Mathematically, fraction is important with all these unknown variables.

[Rucker61]

Yes
Numerically decimals are better. Mathematically, fraction is important with all these unknown variables.

(π/5) x 5 is a lot easier to solve as a fraction than as a decimal.