What are Egyptian Fractions?
In ancient Egypt, fractions were usually given in unit-fraction form. Unit fractions are fractions with one as the numerator. Examples of unit fractions are 1/2, 1/3, 1/12, 1/145. Conversely, 2/3, 5/2, 4/7, etc., are not unit fractions.
Hence, in ancient Egypt, 2/3 would have been expressed this way:
1/2 + 1/6
Go on! Try adding the above two unit fractions and see if they total up to 2/3. Today, Egyptian fractions are mainly used in recreational maths; doing maths for fun with no obvious practical use.
Sometimes, however, Egyptian fractions can be useful in our daily lives. Take 2/3 again as an example. If we had 2 cakes to be shared equally among 3 persons, each person would get 1/2 of a cake and 1/6 of a cake. See visual representation below:
A, B and C represent the 3 persons sharing the 2 cakes and the parts they each receive are marked accordingly. The next visual representation of the “cut-out” cakes makes this even clearer.
Here’s a worked example:
Casey baked 5 cakes to feed her family of 6 (herself included). What’s an easier way to slice up her cakes than trying to cut up each into 6 slices?
Step 1:
Number of cakes -> 5
Number of family members -> 6
Fraction -> 5/6
Step 2:
5/6 = 1/2 + 1/3
That means each family member will receive half and one-third of a cake!
Joyous Learning – Primary Math Tuition and Maths Enrichment
In the enrichment section of our regular math tuition programme, this lesson was featured in the Mad Maths section under the topic of Fractions in Joyous Learning’s P6 Mathematics curriculum. Fractions topic in PSLE math – we make it fun!
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