Question

What mathematical symbol can be put between 5 and 9 to get a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9?

Answer 1

Hint: In this question, we are given two numbers 5 and 9, and we have to find a mathematical symbol that we can put between these numbers so that we get a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9. For this, we will try different mathematical symbols and try to obtain the required answer. Various symbols that we can use are addition (+), subtraction (-), division (÷), multiplication $(\times )$ and decimal (.).

Complete step by step answer:
Here, we are given numbers as 5 and 9. We have to find a mathematical symbol which can be put between 5 and 9 so that we get a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9.
For this, let us try different mathematics symbols one by one.
Let us use addition (+) between 5 and 9. 5+9 gives us 14 but it is greater than 9 so it is not our required symbol.
Now let us use subtraction (-) between 5 and 9. 5-9 gives us -4 but it is smaller than 5 so it is not our required symbol.
Let us use division (÷) between 5 and 9. 5÷9 gives us 0.55 but it is smaller than 5 so it is not our required symbol.
Let us use multiplication $(\times )$ between 5 and 9. $5\times 9$ gives us 45 but it is greater than 9 so it is not our required symbol.
Since all the basic mathematical symbols we can use are decimal points also. Putting decimal between 5 and 9 gives us the number 5.9. Since, 5.9 is a number greater than 5 and smaller than 9 so this is our required symbol.

Hence, decimal point is the mathematical symbol that can be put between 5 and 9 to get a number bigger than 5 and smaller than 9.

Note: In this question, students have to use hit and trial method only. Since, the decimal point is also a mathematical symbol, we can use it between 5 and 9 to get numbers between 5 and 9. Students can make mistakes by putting > symbol as answer but this symbol does not give us any new number so this is an incorrect answer.