gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) (01/05/89)
In article <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> verma@mahimahi.cs.ucla.edu (Rodent of Darkness) writes: > Speaking of division and "fractions" once had a teacher who > said that division and fractions had nothing to do with each > other. To this day I have no idea as to why she said this. > Strictly speaking they are not any more similar than irrationals and square roots. A fraction is a pair of numbers (numerator,denominator) used to denote a rational number. It is an object. Division is a function which works on any usual number system which "includes the rationals" e.g. irrationals, complex numbers, quaternions. The similarity is that rationals were created/discovered to enable you to do division at all. Graham W. TCD, Ireland.