Why the number get bigger when i dividing the fraction?

Answer 1

If you divide anything by a proper fraction (size less than 1), the answer is necessarily something bigger than you start with. You can easily see why this should be so by considering the following:

1 / (4) is 1 / 4 (one quarter), that is LESS than 1, because you were DIVIDING by a number LARGER than 1.

However, 1 / (1/4) is 4 (because there are 4 quarters in 1), that is BIGGER than 1, because you are now DIVIDING by a number LESS than 1. So that's how it works:

Divide by something BIGGER than 1: the answer is SMALLER.

(Divide by EXACTLY 1: the answer is EXACTLY THE SAME.)

Divide by something SMALLER than 1: the answer is BIGGER.


For the number that you're DIVIDING BY, the concepts of what that is initially, and what the answers are like finally, are like two sides of a child's seesaw: if the DIVIDER goes UP (is larger than 1), the answer goes DOWN; if the DIVIDER goes DOWN, the answer goes UP.

Hot tip: DIVIDING by a fraction is ALWAYS the same as MULTIPLYING by its INVERSE (1 over the fraction). You can see this is so by looking at the example 1 / (1/4) above. By what I just said, the answer should be 1 x 4 = 4; and it is!

I hope that this has helped.

Live long and prosper.

Answer 2

Dividing by a number is the same a multiplying by its reciprocal.
Dividing by 2 = multiplying by 1/2
Dividing by 1/2 = multiplying by 2
Dividing by 1/3 = multiplying by 3

a / (1/n) = a * (n/1)

Answer 3

dividing by a number is the same as multiplying by its reciprical. for example 4/2=4* 1/2=2

so 4/(1/2)=4*(2/1)=8

Answer 4

Division is counting how many times something goes into something else. When you take a small something (a fraction) you can get a lot more of them into the number than you can when you take a big something. There are 8 cups in a quart; there are 32 quarter cups in a quart.