Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Ancient Egyptian Multiplication & Division

 I attempted two problems, first 43x9 and then 87/5.



I enjoy the method for multiplication and find it easy to double so the process goes fairly quickly. With the division problem, I ended up with 17.5 instead of 17.4. I think this is because we "ignore" halves so we don't get the precise decimal. I tried it another way but I got 18. I think the division method does not work as well as the multiplication method likely because there was not necessarily an understanding of a system for irrational numbers or use of certain fractions.





1 comment:

  1. Hi Christine, lovely to read your thoughts on this! Would you still potentially have students engage in an activity around division despite it not working as well?

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