How do I write 2.9 as a fraction?

Answer 1

2.9 is fairly easy to convert to a fraction if you understand some basic principles of decimals and the base ten number system.

Numbers are structured in the following columns:

...1000's 100's 10's 1's 10ths 100ths 1000ths...

So for the number 1234.567,

The 1000's column contains the digit 1

The 100's column contains the digit 2

The 10's column contains the digit 3

The 1's column contains the digit 4

The 10ths column contains the digit 5

The 100ths column contains the digit 6

The 1000ths column contains the digit 7

And for the number 12.6 (or 0012.600)

The 1000's column contains the digit 0

The 100's column contains the digit 0

The 10's column contains the digit 1

The 1's column contains the digit 2

The 10ths column contains the digit 6

The 100ths column contains the digit 0

The 1000ths column contains the digit 0

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One 10th can be written as the fraction 1/10

As the number 2.9 contains 9 in the 10ths column, we have 0.9 = 9/10 from that column.

In addition to the 0.9, we also have 2.0

If we move 2 down to the 10ths column, we get 2 = 20/10

Adding the two parts together, we get the fraction 29/10.

Or by skipping the 2, we get the form of 2 9/10