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10: Rational Numbers

  • Page ID
    83022
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    The teacher announced that the class would be learning more about rational numbers.

    An English major raised his hand and said that numbers weren’t rational After all; a number certainly couldn’t think let alone be rational!

    ‘The teacher said she didn’t mean that kind of rational.

    Another student said she’d heard numbers could be rational; as well as irrational; but she didn’t think it
    had anything to do with thinking.

    The teacher agreed. The root in the word ‘rational’ is ratio”. A rational number is simply a number that can be written as the ratio of an integer and a nonzero integer.

    Someone asked if that definition would be on the test, and if so, would it be on an English test or math test?

    The teacher finally said that they were going to learn more about fractions today.


    This page titled 10: Rational Numbers is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Julie Harland via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.