Okay, so today I messed around with this fraction, 175 over 2. It’s not something I normally do, but I got curious. First thing I did was try to see if I could make this fraction smaller, you know, simplify it.
I started looking for numbers that could divide both 175 and 2. I tried 2, ’cause it’s the easiest, but 175 isn’t an even number, so that didn’t work. Then I thought, maybe 3? Nope, 175 divided by 3 gave me some weird decimal. So, 3 was out.
Then I remembered about 5. Since 175 ends in a 5, I figured it might be divisible by 5. I tried it, and boom! 175 divided by 5 is 35. But 2 divided by 5? That doesn’t give a whole number.
- Tried dividing by 2, didn’t work.
- Tried dividing by 3, also a no-go.
- Tried dividing by 5, but it only worked for 175.
So, I’m kind of stuck here. It seems like there’s no number that can divide both 175 and 2 to make the fraction smaller. This made me think, maybe this fraction is already in its simplest form. I mean, it’s just 175 and 2, and they don’t have any common friends – I mean factors – except for 1, but dividing by 1 doesn’t change anything.
Then, I got this idea to see what 175 divided by 2 actually is. I just grabbed my phone, used the calculator, and punched in 175 divided by 2. The answer popped up as 87.5. Oh, so that’s what it is!
I also remembered something about mixed numbers from school. So, 87.5 is like 87 and a half, right? I wrote it down as 87 1/2. That looked kinda neat, a whole number and a little fraction hanging out together.
What I Learned
Basically, 175 over 2 is as simple as it gets. And when you divide it, you get 87.5, which is the same as 87 1/2 as a mixed number. It was a fun little experiment. Maybe next time I’ll try a different fraction, who knows!