If you wanted to find the difference of , what common denominator should you choose? Why?
To find the difference between fractions, you need to have a common denominator. The common denominator is the smallest multiple that two or more denominators share.
Let's consider the example where you want to find the difference between fractions, 1/4 and 3/8. The denominators, 4 and 8, do not match. To find the common denominator, you can start by finding the least common multiple (LCM) of the denominators.
To do this, you can list the multiples of each denominator:
Multiples of 4: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, ...
Multiples of 8: 8, 16, 24, 32, ...
Looking at the lists, you can see that the smallest number that appears in both lists is 8. Therefore, the common denominator for 1/4 and 3/8 would be 8.
Choosing a common denominator allows you to easily compare and operate on fractions with different denominators. In this case, having a common denominator makes it possible to subtract 3/8 from 1/4 directly.