How do you change -1/2 into a decimal?

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13
Oct 31, 2015

See explanation

Explanation:

A decimal is another way to write a fraction whose denominator is a power of $10$, so if you want to change a fraction to decimal first thing is to see if you can reduce or expand the fraction to get such denominator:

In this case to get a deniminator of $10$ you only have to multiply numerator and denominator by $5$

$- \frac{1}{2} = - \frac{1 \cdot \textcolor{red}{5}}{2 \cdot \textcolor{red}{5}} = - \frac{5}{10} = - 0.5$

However this method does not always work. A method that works for every fraction is to calculete the long division of numerator and denominator to see if the decimal is finite. For example:

2:3=0.666...
0

20
18

=20
18

$$ 20
....

Then teach the underlying concepts
Don't copy without citing sources
preview
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Explanation

Explain in detail...

Explanation:

I want someone to double check my answer

12
Sally Share
Oct 31, 2015

$- \frac{1}{2} = - 0.5$

Explanation:

You can do this through division; $- \frac{1}{2}$ is actually just a division problem:

-1/2=-1÷2=-0.5

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