Is anyone good with fractions?

[merexcursion]

Here is a story problem from my math class that's got me hung up trying to understand: (maybe atomicat can explain it to me

Comments

[atomicat]

In the words of many EC Horror comics... "Good Lord! *choke!*" That's not a math exercise, that's an exercise in parsing of the English language! I had to read it three times just to make sure they were actually describing a problem that simple and not throwing in a ringer somewhere. Anyways, how would I word that.

You have a cake that is cut into four pieces. If you want twelve pieces, how many pieces will you have to make out of each individual quarter of the cake? Or something like that.

You've got twelve people, divide the cake into four pieces, and give one piece to each group of three, then they divide it further into three pieces.

One quarter of one third is one twelfth. Four times three inches is a foot. Three times four inches is a foot.

I just had a thought... Base ten decimal system was invented in one place, India, and spread. But most of the worlds' cultures used systems of counting that used 12 and 60 a lot. 12 is a great base number for commerce as it's got so many prime factors in such a brief spread of

[merexcursion]

Thanks, that does help! I sooo don't have a math mind :P
Keeping my fingers crossed for your mostly clear and beautiful sky.

[atomicat]

Well I've got my clear skies but a I won't be able to do much for photography. There's a bunch of problems but I'll be working on em one by one and eventually it'll happen.