Do you know that fraction used to be represented by pictorial symbols?
The history of fractions goes back to the ancient Egyptians. However, the Egyptians did not expressed fractions as ratios such as 2:5 or 2/5 like we do nowadays. They expressed ratios in unit fractions.
What are unit fractions?
A unit fraction is a fraction that has a numerator of 1 and the denominator is a positive integer.
For example,
The Egyptians would write 2/5 as 1/3 +1/15
How the Egyptian represented fraction
The Egyptians wrote numbers (based on tens) alongside pictures called hieroglyphs.
For example, 1/3 + 1/15 would be represented as shown below:
Notice the man's feet is pointing towards the direction of writing (from left to right). T
In this case, it is pointing towards the direction of writing.
Notice also that there is a shape that looks like an open mouth (the ellipse). It refers to a fraction
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1 comments:
you could expand on your facts a bit more explaining why
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