How do you simplify #1/5 div 3/5#?

1 Answer
Mar 16, 2018

The simplified answer is #1/3#.

Explanation:

You can use this nifty property when diving by fractions:

#a/b div color(red)c/color(blue)d qquad => qquad a/b xx color(blue)d/color(red)c#

Just flip the fraction, and change it to multiplication. Here's this property applied to our problem:

#color(white)=1/5 div color(red)3/color(blue)5#

#=1/5xxcolor(blue)5/color(red)3#

#=(1xxcolor(blue)5)/(5xxcolor(red)3)#

#=(1xxcolor(red)cancelcolor(blue)5)/(color(red)cancelcolor(black)5xxcolor(red)3)#

#=1/color(red)3#

That's the most simplified it gets. Hope this helped!