Question

How do you express \[0.5\] as a fraction?

Answer 1

Hint: Here the question is in the form of decimal point, which represents a value that is smaller than one. Now, we have to convert it into a fraction, which is a whole number, which has a numerator and denominator and also a ratio between it. Here we need to divide the number by 10 , we get the required solution.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Given \[0.5\]and we will multiply numerator and denominator with \[10\] because after a point there is only a single digit.
\[ \Rightarrow 0.5 = \dfrac{{5 \times 10}}{{10 \times 10}}\]
Now, let us multiply the above term; we will get;
\[ \Rightarrow 0.5 = \dfrac{{5 \times 10}}{{10 \times 10}} = \dfrac{{50}}{{100}}\]
After simplifying the above fraction, we get;
\[ \Rightarrow 0.5 = \dfrac{{5 \times 10}}{{10 \times 10}} = \dfrac{{50}}{{100}} = \dfrac{1}{2}\]
Hence the fraction for \[0.5\] is \[\dfrac{1}{2}\]
So, the correct answer is “\[\dfrac{1}{2}\]”.

Note: Here the given question is in the form of decimal number and we are converting it to fraction. This is because five times one and five times two which is ten. Another way of doing it is five is exactly half of ten.
So, we can say that if there is one digit after decimal, then we need to multiply by \[10\], if there are two digits then we need to multiply by \[100\], if there are three digits, then we need to multiply by \[1000\] and so on.
We can actually do it other way as follows:
Given, \[0.5\] which is a decimal, and it is said as five-tenths. This is because the decimal point is after one place.
Now, let us convert it to fraction as mentioned:
\[0.5 = \dfrac{5}{{10}} = \dfrac{1}{2}\]
Then we would simplify the fraction as, which is \[\dfrac{1}{2}\]