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Converting percents to decimals: 59.2%

Decimals can be written in percent form. ​Per-cent means per-100. So, we multiply the decimal by 100 to get an equivalent percent. Then, we add a percent sign (%). For example, 0.8 can be converted to percent form by solving 0.8✕100. So, 0.8=80%. Another way to think of multiplying by 100 is moving the decimal two places to the right.   Created by Sal Khan.

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Video transcript

Let's see if we can write 59.2%, if we can write this as a decimal. Well, 59.2%, this literally means 59.2 per cent, which literally means 59.2 per 100, which literally means 59.2 per 100, which is the same thing as 59.2 divided by 100. And If we were to divide 59.2 by 100, what would we get? So this is the same thing is 59.2 divided by 100. So if we were to take 59.2, if we wanted to divide it by 10, we would move the decimal over to the left once. We would get 5.92. But we want to divide it by 100, so we move the decimal over to the left again. We're dividing by 10 once, and then we're dividing by 10 again. Divide by 10 twice, you're essentially dividing by 100. So you move the decimal to the left twice, you get 0.592. And we'll just put a 0 out here just to clarify things. And we're done. We've written 59.2% as a decimal. We essentially just divided this by 100, which is dividing by 10 twice, moving the decimal once to the left, and then another time. Or since we're dividing by 100, moving the decimal twice to the left. And we get 0.592.