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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ali Chen who wrote (65016)	7/12/1999 10:20:00 PM
From: Fred Fahmy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579927

Since you refuse to drop it....I will try and help you one last time. The response below the line is from a tenure math professor at Northern Illinois University. BTW re: your example of a salary two times smaller...a salary two times smaller would be the same salary with a negative sign in front of it. I have to believe this is a language difference problem. Try to think literally. Two times smaller means you reduce the original number by two times the original number. Four times smaller means you reduce the original number by four times the original number. This is English. FF ==================================================================== Fred Fahmy wrote: > > Greg, > > Which statement is mathematically correct: > > 1) .25 is 4 times smaller than 1 > > 2) .25 is .75 times smaller than 1 > > Thanks, > > Fred > > Hey, Fred. Well of course statement 2 is correct and statement 1 is not. Although 1 is false, it is true that 1 is 4 times the size of .25 In general, to say that x is k times smaller than y would be the same as saying that (y-x)/y = k (or equivalently, 1 - (x/y) = k). While "x is k times larger than y" means (x-y)/y = k. Also "x is k times the size of y" means x/y = k. It may make more sense to think of something being on sale at a store. If an item lists for $100, a 75% price reduction would give a sale price of $25 (the sale price is .75 times smaller than the list price). But if you wanted to raise the price from $25 to $100, that would amount to a 300% increase. So a 75% reduction is "undone" with a 300% increase. Hope this helps. -Greg