At some point during fifth grade, our math and science teacher was teaching us about long division. They started off by asking the class how to do long division, and I raised my hand. One of my parents went to a parent-teacher conference, and they just recently brought up my teacher's memory of my response. When I was called on, I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on the desk, and said, "Well, there are two ways." According to him, the first one was the one he was about to teach, and the second one he had never heard of since college!
Unfortunately, that form of long division has slipped my mind. Can anyone remind me of what it was?
What's the second form of long division?
- Posted:
- 3+ months ago by weatherma...
- Topics:
- math, asking, maths, division
Details:
Answers (1)
Long division is the second form. The first form is to subtract one number from the other and count how many times you can subract it. That is how a computer divides. Long division is a faster method because you first multiply the divisor by a power of 10 and divide by inspection. Suppose the first digit of the number is thousands, and you can see that your divisor could be subtracted 3 times, so you write 3 in the thousands column of the answer and subtract it 3 times. Then you do the same process in the hundreds column. Much faster that way.