ok, but what happened to the letters? don't they remain part of the problem? also, how does 15k/20k reduce to 4/5? thanks for your help. joshua
15k/20k should reduce to 3/4 because you can take a 5 out of 15 and be left with 3 and take 5 out of 20 and be left with 4. The K's cancel each other out, because k/k is equal to 1 and 1 times 3/4 is still 3/4. Hope that helps.
thank you jennie
You're welcome, Joshua! I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. Let's clarify the reduction of 15k/20k to 4/5.
To reduce the fraction 15k/20k, we need to find the greatest common factor (GCF) of the numerator (15k) and the denominator (20k) and divide both of them by that factor.
In this case, the GCF of 15k and 20k is 5k. To find this, we break down both numbers into their prime factors:
15k = 3 * 5 * k
20k = 2^2 * 5 * k
From these prime factorizations, we can identify the common factors: 5 and k. Therefore, the GCF is 5k.
Now, to simplify the fraction, we can divide both the numerator and denominator by the GCF:
(15k)/(20k) = (15k ÷ 5k)/(20k ÷ 5k) = (3)/(4)
Hence, 15k/20k simplifies to 3/4, not 4/5 as I previously mentioned. I apologize for the mistake and any confusion it may have caused. Thank you for pointing it out, Joshua.