Please provide a rating, it takes seconds and helps us to keep this resource free for all to use
Welcome to our Math lesson on Decimal Fractions, this is the first lesson of our suite of math lessons covering the topic of Converting Fractions to Decimals and Vice-versa, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional Math learning resources below this lesson.
By definition, a decimal fraction is a fraction that has its denominator as a power of ten. For example, 3/10, 21/100, 357/1000, etc., are all decimal fractions because we can write them as
There are some fractions that do not seem to be decimal fractions, but with a few steps, they can be transformed into decimal fractions. These steps include multiplying or dividing both numerator and denominator several times by the same number until we obtain a decimal fraction. First, we check whether the denominator may become 10 or not; otherwise we try for 100, then for 1000 and so on. Let's see an example to clarify this point.
Convert the following fractions into decimal fractions.
We have
Despite the fact that in the example above we have considered only proper fractions, decimal fractions can also be improper. In this case, it is better to write them as mixed numbers. Let's see another example to clarify this point.
Express the following fractions into mixed numbers after converting them into decimal fractions first.
Not all fractions can be written as decimal fractions. For example, the fraction 2/3 cannot be expressed as decimal fraction because it is impossible to find a whole number that when multiplied by 3 gives a power of 10. We will discuss later for such fractions on how to deal with them.
Enjoy the "Decimal Fractions" math lesson? People who liked the "Converting Fractions to Decimals and Vice-versa lesson found the following resources useful:
Please provide a rating, it takes seconds and helps us to keep this resource free for all to use
We hope you found this Math tutorial "Converting Fractions to Decimals and Vice-versa" useful. If you did it would be great if you could spare the time to rate this math tutorial (simply click on the number of stars that match your assessment of this math learning aide) and/or share on social media, this helps us identify popular tutorials and calculators and expand our free learning resources to support our users around the world have free access to expand their knowledge of math and other disciplines.