At least in grade school, I was likewise required to convert fractions to mixed form. I agree that automatically doing this (and calling the raw ratio "improper") is pretty silly. Still, if you need to know the size of a number you will care about knowing at least approximately the integer part. So it's not just unadulterated nonsense. —Dan
On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:50 AM, Bill Gosper <billgosper@gmail.com> wrote:
A young friend has to convert all his "improper" fractions to mixed numbers. When he repeated my remark that mathematicians, scientists, and engineers shun mixed numbers, he got hauled up before the dean, who angrily insisted that mathematicians actually prefer mixed numbers. Does anybody know a computer algebra system that even offers mixed numbers as an output format? An input format?? --rwg A still younger friend emailed:
What?? 3½=3+½?? That's crazy!
I was showing this guy rotation matrices, and he seriously asked, "What's a degree? Is that like pi/180?" --rwg