[jambutty]

Originally Posted by K.S.H

If fractions come into it the porter would have paid them £1.66 each

It stated that the bellboy couldn’t figure out how to spilt £5 evenly between three men so he must have been thinking in decimals especially as our currency is decimal currency. You are trying to mix theory with practice. You can have one and one third pounds in theory but you cannot do so in practice. You could in the old money of pounds shillings and pence though.

The art of working in fractions seems to be a dying art these days. Decimals are much simpler to use especially in mental arithmetic. But even then do people understand what £8.33r means when dividing £25 by 3 using decimals? Or dividing £5 by 3 to get 1.66r or 1.6666666667. Multiply 1.6666666667 by 3 and you get 5.0000000001.

I could have done the explanation in decimals but would have ended up with £1.98 and that is not £2. I suppose that I could have gone to explain where the missing 2p was but it was simpler to use fractions.