"This relies on a principle "other way" introduc..."

https://arbital.com/p/5jp

by Kevin Clancy Jul 22 2016


Remember, fracam is made of a copies of pieces of size frac1m; so what we do is cut all of the frac1m\-chunks individually into n pieces, and then give everyone a of the little pieces we've made\. But "cut a frac1m\-chunk into n pieces" is just "cut an apple into n pieces, but instead of doing it to one apple, do it to a frac1m\-chunk": that is, it is frac1mtimesfrac1n, or frac1mtimesn\.

This relies on a principle "other way" introduces but, in my opinion, is not explicit enough about: nm=n×1m. Could this be made more explicit at the end of the "other way" section? e.g. "What we've really shown here is that nm=n×1m".


Comments

Patrick Stevens

I think this actually belongs in the Multiplication article, but you're quite right that I've not been explicit enough. I intend to have a meditation on the various ways that the notation is consistent, but this one doesn't need any division at all so it should appear earlier.