What is 2 over 3 times 2 over 3?

Answer 1

4/9. Get yourself 9 pennies. Now divide those into 3 equal parts. Remove one of those parts [1/3] and mix the remaining pennies [2/3] up. Now take those pennies and divide it into 3 equal parts. Remove one part [1/3 of those pennies]. You now have 4 pennies out of the original (9 pennies.) What is the rule that you could have used to come up with the answer without using pennies?

Play around with 12 pennies and do some fraction multiplications. See why there are so many old measuring systems based on the number 12 and not 10.