Multiplication and Division of Fractions With Calculators and Computers

Multiplication and division of fractions with calculators and computers. Let's say there's a problem like two fifths divided by one third. How does one go about solving a problem like this with a calculator? If your calculator has fraction handling features, you can use those, but it's common to enter fractional numbers as a division operation. Two fifths becomes 2/5, and one third becomes 1/3, 2/5 divided by 1/3. We could simply enter the problem as I read it just now. Two divide five, divide one, divide three, then hit Enter. The calculator will give an answer for sure, but it won't be the answer we want. It's not that the calculator made a mistake. It gave the answer for what was just entered. But we have to be aware of the order of operations when we input a problem like this. The calculator will group this entry like this. It will calculate 2/5, then divide that by one, and then divide that by three, and that's not what we want. We want the answer of 2/5, divided by the answer of 1/3. 2/5 is 0.4. 1/3 is 0.333, which is three repeating forever. Then we divide the first answer by the second answer. Zero point 4/0 0.333 repeating. To get the calculator to do this, we enter open parentheses two divide five, close parentheses. Divide open parentheses, one divide three, close parentheses, then hit Enter and there's the answer we want 1.2. The general best practice is to surround any fraction you want to enter with parentheses. This goes for both division and multiplication. The same practice also works well for most spreadsheets and programming languages. Surround your fractions with parentheses and be sure to use the asterik for multiplying fractions. Don't use an X. Most computer software uses the asterik as the multiplication operator.