By Christopher W. Larimer, University of Northern Iowa Professor of Political Science. In a recent New York Times column, John Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, discussed the difficulty of ...

Fractions, often perceived as daunting, become manageable with the right approach. Addition and subtraction require finding a common denominator, while multiplication involves directly multiplying ...

Divide both the numerator and denominator by their HCF. The fraction has now been simplified. Knowing multiplication and division facts may make simplifying fractions easier. The HCF of 4 and 10 is 2.

Looking at this fraction is a little bit different than looking at the other complex fractions that we've dealt with. However, we can make it look like the other complex fractions. But first of all, ...