Difference between revisions of "Ratio"

Revision as of 18:44, 20 February 2016

In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind (e.g., objects, persons, students, spoonfuls, units of whatever identical dimension), expressed as "a to b" or a:b

A ratio is sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two that explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second (not necessarily an integer).

Example

In layman's terms a ratio represents, for every amount of one thing, how much there is of another thing.

For example, supposing one has 8 oranges and 6 lemons in a bowl of fruit, the ratio of oranges to lemons would be 4:3 (which is equivalent to 8:6) while the ratio of lemons to oranges would be 3:4.

Additionally, the ratio of oranges to the total amount of fruit is 4:7 (equivalent to 8:14).

The 4:7 ratio can be further converted to a fraction of 4/7 to represent how much of the fruit is oranges.

See also

• Fraction (mathematics)
• Golden ratio
• Mathematics
• Number
• Proportionality (mathematics)
• Scale (ratio)

External links

• Ratio @ Wikipedia