Converting Fractions to Decimals

How do we go from a fraction to a decimal? We're so glad you asked.

0.32 graph representation

Like we can see above, eight twenty-fifths is equivalent to thirty-two hundredths. All we did was multiply the top and bottom of the fraction by 4.

8 × 4 = 32
25 × 4 = 100

And hey, thirty-two hundredths can be written as 0.32, a decimal.

Unfortunately, not all fractions are that easy. Most can't be rewritten with a denominator of 10, or 100, or 1000. We need a more foolproof way of converting every fraction. Lucky for us, there is one: all we need to do is divide the numerator by the denominator!

Our numerator was 8, so we divide that by the denominator, 25.

8/25 long division

Be Careful: always divide the denominator into the numerator and not the other way around. In other words, the numerator always goes inside the division box.