Can I express the difference of these two fractions as one fraction in simplest form...How can I do this...
a/15 - b/5
First find a common denomibator. In this case it is 15.
So.. what is a/15 - 3b/15 ?
To express the difference of the fractions a/15 and b/5 as one fraction in simplest form, you need to find a common denominator for the two fractions.
The denominators in this case are 15 and 5. To find the least common denominator (LCD), you will need to find the lowest number that both 15 and 5 divide evenly into. In this case, the LCD is 15, since both 15 and 5 divide evenly into it.
Now, you need to express both a/15 and b/5 with the common denominator of 15. To do this, you can multiply the numerator and denominator of a/15 by 1, and the numerator and denominator of b/5 by 3:
a/15 = (a * 1) / (15 * 1) = a/15
b/5 = (b * 3) / (5 * 3) = 3b/15
Now that both fractions have the same denominator, you can subtract them:
(a/15) - (b/5) = (a/15) - (3b/15)
Since both fractions have the same denominator, you can simply subtract the numerators to get the numerator of the final fraction:
(a/15) - (3b/15) = (a - 3b)/15
Thus, the difference of the fractions a/15 and b/5 can be expressed as one fraction in simplest form as (a - 3b)/15.