A goat is tied to the corner of a shed

In business and the trades, at least before everything went to decimal notation for fractions, you would almost never see someone write a number as (for example) $\frac 52.$ Instead they would write $2\frac12,$ which by convention was read as a single number equal to $2+\frac12.$ This notation is called a mixed fraction. It is highly discouraged in most mathematical settings, but you can still see it used sometimes, especially in old puzzle books.

While I was trying not to be U.S.-centric in this answer, I should acknowledge that mixed fractions are still extremely common in the U.S. for many kinds of measurements, and as noted in the comments are seen in some contexts in at least a few other countries.


As far as I can tell you’re answer is fine and the textbook is wrong. Maybe the misprint was $709/4=177 +1/4$. So the answers are typed almost the same.

Tags:

Rectangles

Area

Euclidean Geometry

Circles

Related

Investigating whether a function is bounded If $A$ and $B$ are groups then prove that $A\times B\cong B\times A$ What is a practical use for this metric? Find $x \in \mathbb{R}$ such that $(x^2+p^2)/xp < -2$ Prove $R(a \times b) = Ra \times Rb$ given $R \in \mathcal{SO}(3)$ and $a,b \in \mathbb{R}^3$. Prove the Rational Limit Theorem. When are the eigenvalues of a matrix containing all squared elements irrational/rational? Functional equation problem: $ f \left( y ^ 2 - f ( x ) \right) = y f ( x ) ^ 2 + f \left( x ^ 2 y + y \right) $ How to change the order of integration when limit is a function? Simplifying $i \left[ \ln(x+i)-\ln(x-i)-\ln(1+ix)+\ln(1-ix) \right]$ The identity $(u\times v)\cdot(x\times y)=\begin{vmatrix}u\cdot x&v\cdot x\\ u\cdot y&v\cdot y\\\end{vmatrix}$ Is power set functor determined by its image on objects?

Recent Posts