Question

What is the reciprocal of 3?

Answer 1

Hint: Here in this question, we need to find the reciprocal of the given number. The reciprocal of a number is another word for its multiplicative inverse. To find the reciprocal of any number, simply take 1 and divide it by that number or it is also found by interchanging the numerator and denominator.

Complete step-by-step solution:
In Mathematics, reciprocal means an expression which when multiplied by another expression, gives unity (1) as a result. The reciprocal of any quantity is, one divided by that quantity, It is also called the multiplicative inverse.
For any number ‘a’, the reciprocal will be \[\dfrac{1}{a}\].
Consider the given question: we need to find the reciprocal of 3.
 simply take 1 and divide it by that number 3, then
The reciprocal of 3 is: \[\dfrac{1}{3}\].
We can check that this is the multiplicative inverse of 3 by multiplying those two numbers together and seeing if we get 1:
\[ \Rightarrow \,3 \cdot \dfrac{1}{3}\]
\[ \Rightarrow \,1\]
Therefore, the reciprocal of 3 is \[\dfrac{1}{3}\].

Note: As a side note for future or further reciprocal problems, you may want to remember that the number 0 does not have a reciprocal. This is because there isn't any number you can multiply by zero to get 1.