A pie is split into four. 30%, 30%, 20% and 20%. One 20% piece isn't taken and must be divided proportionally to the remaining 30%, 30% and 20% holders. What formula can be used to figure an amount the remaining 20% should be divided?
Answers (1)
Get a ruler in your hands. Measure things until you start to understand how a ruler works. Measure some stuff and figure out where the center is. Say you measure a book and it's 7/8" thick. You look at your ruler and see that every eighth is divided into two sixteenths, so obviously half of 7/8" is going to be 7/16". If you write that out you have 1/2 x 7/8 = 7/16. And you notice that 1/2 is divided into 2/4 and then into 4/8 and so on, so you can convert anything to anything by multiplying all the numbers on top and then all the numbers on bottom.
Other rulers are divided into 10 and 100 parts. But an inch is still an inch, so anything on one ruler can be translated to the other ruler. A half inch on one ruler is 5/10 or 50/100 on the other. An eighth inch is just 12.5 marks when you have 100 marks per inch. A metric ruler divides an inch into 25.4 parts, so a half inch would be 12.7 of those parts. Pretty simple, isn't it? Practice this a bit and people will think you went to wizard school.
Percent is simply a ruler with 100 marks. The only confusion is trying to keep track of what the marks represent, since that changes from time to time. In this case the percents are merely a distraction. You are given a piece of 20 marks and you want to divide those 20 marks in the ratio 3, 3, and 2. That will be 3/8, 3/8, and 2/8 of the 20 marks, which becomes 3/8 x 20% = 60/8 = 7 1/2%, 7 1/2% and 2/8 x 20% = 5%.
Thanks so much for all your time and excellent explanation. Don't know why math can be so daunting at times? A million thanks Mr. J. Vern