From the course: Learning Algebra: Solving Equations

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Solving equations with decimals by clearing the decimals

Solving equations with decimals by clearing the decimals

From the course: Learning Algebra: Solving Equations

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Solving equations with decimals by clearing the decimals

- In our next lesson we're going to talk about equations that contain decimals. But before we begin actually solving equations we're going to take a minute and talk about how to work with decimals. Even though our title says Working With Decimals, I'm actually going to change this to we're Not Working With Decimals. Because our goal, as we solve these equations, is actually going to be to get rid of the decimals because nobody likes working with them. So first we're going to talk about these numbers that we're familiar with. If I have the number three, and I want to mathematically change that to the number 30, think about what you could do mathematically. Hopefully you're thinking that you could just multiply by 10, because three times 10 is 30. And if I want to change three to 300, what would I do? Well, I could multiply three times 100, and three times 100 is 300. Hopefully you're catching on and realize that three can be changed to 3000 simply by multiplying by 1000. Now as we look…

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