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Divide whole numbers with decimal quotients: 5÷2

This video teaches how to divide whole numbers to get a decimal quotient. It explains two methods to achieve this, emphasizing that division can result in decimals, not just whole numbers or remainders. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • mr pants purple style avatar for user Ms Square
    Why does it make sense to equate 5/2 as 50 tenths / 2 = 25 tenths = 2.5

    But, 12 / .5 = 120 tenths / 5 tenths = 24 and not 24 tenths, which would be 2.4.

    How do you decide which equations to drop the extra tenths.

    Following the rule of converting to tenths, wouldn't it make sense to say:

    50 tenths / 20 tenths =
    (16 votes)
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  • blobby blue style avatar for user BubbleGum&SugarPlum
    So 5 ÷ 2 = 5/2 ( ) , which as a improper fraction is 2 1/2 ( ). 2 1/2 as a decimal is 2.5 ( ), so 5 ÷ 2 is equal to 2.5, right? Please tell me if I made any mistakes, I'd like to know.

    Thx!
    (7 votes)
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    • hopper cool style avatar for user Philip
      You did not make any mistakes in your calculations, but remember that improper fractions are fractions with a numerator greater than the denominator; 5/2 is already an improper fraction.
      Values with both a whole number and a proper fraction combined are mixed numbers, so the 2 (and) 1/2 is a mixed number.
      (10 votes)
  • male robot donald style avatar for user skyeculley
    How am i supposed to do this!
    (5 votes)
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  • starky sapling style avatar for user jorgeo1010
    So 5 ÷ 2 = 5/2 ( ) , which as a improper fraction is 2 1/2 ( ). 2 1/2 as a decimal is 2.5 ( ), so 5 ÷ 2 is equal to 2.5, right? Please tell me if I made any mistakes, I'd like to know.
    (7 votes)
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  • starky ultimate style avatar for user docians souza
    Tbh the video doesn’t really help me with the questions I’m getting, I can easily do five divided by two, but questions I’m getting are seven divided by twenty, which this video doesn’t help answer.
    (9 votes)
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  • starky sapling style avatar for user jorgeo1010
    Why does it make sense to equate 5/2 as 50 tenths / 2 = 25 tenths = 2.5

    But, 12 / .5 = 120 tenths / 5 tenths = 24 and not 24 tenths, which would be 2.4.

    How do you decide which equations to drop the extra tenths.

    Following the rule of converting to tenths, wouldn't it make sense to say:

    50 tenths / 20 tenths =
    (5 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • starky sapling style avatar for user jorgeo1010
    How does this make sense like how do you turn a whole number into a fraction then into a decimal! Whats next how to turn 1+1 into a book?
    (7 votes)
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    • duskpin sapling style avatar for user dtusing
      Actually, turing 1+1 into a book would be easy. But, getting to the point, we can turn a whole number into a fraction by taking something away from it, and then put the number on the bottom on the right side of the decimal, and then putting the top number on the left. For example,
      9
      9-73/9=1/9
      1/9=1.9

      I hope this helped! Thx!
      (0 votes)
  • starky sapling style avatar for user jorgeo1010
    Think about money.
    1) If you have a $1 bill, you have a whole number amount.
    2) You need change, so you convert your $1 bill into 4 quarters. Each quarter = 1/4 of $1. So, now you have 4 units of 1/4.
    3) The value of one quarter is $0.25 (a decimal). So, you can also say that you have 4 units of $0.25.

    If you do anything with money, you are likely doing these conversions, but maybe without knowing it.
    Hope this example helps.
    (4 votes)
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  • starky sapling style avatar for user hellojasperdu
    Can u please make a video about this by using different numbers to divide? In the exercise it says 3 ÷ 4 = ? which is confusing because it doesn't say how to do those kinds of questions. Thank you!:)
    (4 votes)
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    • primosaur seed style avatar for user Ian Pulizzotto
      To do 3 divided by 4, we can divide 4 into 3, using long division.

      4 goes into 3, zero times. Write 0 on top and a decimal point after the 0 (to line up with the decimal point after the 4).
      4 goes into 30, seven times with 2 left over. Write the digit 7 on top, just after the decimal point.
      4 goes into 20, five times exactly. Write the digit 5 on top, just after the 7.
      So the answer (quotient) is 0.75.
      (0 votes)
  • aqualine sapling style avatar for user Aqualine / joel
    just think about what+what=5 in this case it is 2 1/2+
    2 1/2=5

    hope this helps ;)
    (2 votes)
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Video transcript

- [Instructor] So in this video, we're going to think about dividing numbers where the quotient, the result of our division, might result in a decimal. So let's say we wanted to compute what five divided by two is. In the past, you might've said, hey, two times two is four and then you'd have one leftover and so you might have said something like this, this is two with a remainder of one. But now we don't want, we don't wanna just say, hey, how many times can it go in and what's left over. We wanna know exactly how many times can two go into five so we want a decimal answer right over here. So, pause this video and see if you can figure that out. All right, now let's work through this together. And there's many ways that we could approach this. One way is to realize that five divided by two, we could re-express as five divided by two or as five halves and five halves is the same thing as four plus one over two which is the same thing as four halves plus one half which is the same thing as four halves is two. Let me do that in a different color. This part over here is two and then you have this one half. So it's the same thing as two and a half and if we were to express that as a decimal that's going to be equal to two and how many tenths is equal to a half? Well five tenths is equal to a half. So five divided by two, you could say, 2.5. Now another way that you could approach this is you say, five divided by two is the same thing as 50 tenths divided by two. So let me use a different color here. So instead of a five, I could say five is the same thing as 50 tenths, 50 tenths divided by, divided by two and so if I have 50 of something and if I were to divide it by two, well that's going to result in 25 of the something. So this is going to be equal to 25 tenths. And how would we express 25 tenths as a decimal? Well, this is going to be equal to, if I could put some place values here, so we definitely have five tenths. I'll put that in the tenths place and then 20 tenths is the same thing as two ones. And that's exactly what we had up here. Either way, you get 2.5, two ones and five tenths.