Video Transcript
What is the decimal form of
one-fifth?
We want to convert a fraction to a
decimal. So to do this, we must find a
number we can multiply or divide the denominator by such that it becomes 10, 100,
1000, or any number with a one followed by zeros.
In this case, we may multiply five
by two to get 10. So, we multiply both the numerator
and denominator of our fraction by two. Then, we have two-tenths.
In the next step, we will use the
denominator to decide the decimal place: tenths for 10, hundredths for 100,
thousandths for 1000, and so on. A decimal system place value table
can be used to help determine this. Two portions out of 10 means we put
two in the tenths place. And since the fraction is less than
one, we put a zero in the ones place.
We have shown that the fraction
one-fifth can be written as the terminating decimal 0.2.
