r/ipad • u/nolow9573 • 10h ago

calculator results as fraction Question

maybe this has been asked before but i couldn’t find anything so i’m asking here. how can i take a decimal result from the calculator and display it as a fraction? is this even possible with the native apple apps? and if not what would be an alternative way to do this? thx in advance

1 Upvotes

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u/Goodspike 9h ago

Interesting question I don't know the answer to. But it reminded me of something.

Back when I used to get deli meat from the deli counter at the grocery store I noticed the employees would become confused if you told them you wanted two tenths of a pound. The knew .25 on the scale is a quarter pound, .5 on the scale was a half pound, etc, but they didn't know how to find a weight that didn't require any conversion! Just .2 without conversion.

Anyway, based on that I can see why you might want such an output.

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u/nolow9573 8h ago

mainly its because i got numbers with many decimals so getting a fraction gives 100% accuracy no rounding without writing 1000000 numbers after the . yfm

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u/Goodspike 8h ago

Isn't a fraction going to have to round, or give a very bizarre fraction?

There is a way on some calculators to limit the number of decimals show, with the last digit being rounded. Unfortunately it's been a long time since I've done something like that, so I don't remember how or which devices/apps.

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u/nolow9573 3h ago

not rly like the longer fractions have like 8 digits(u might call that bizarre) with is not nothing but still manageable(esp for a unrounded result that will introduce no loss in precision). i could also round numbers myself very ez but i don’t want rounded results. the problem is that if u keep stacking rounded results the deviation will increase exponentially so if u have like 30 steps in a calculation it will actually make a noticeable difference. fractions r gr8 tho bc they have no rounding so u will always stay an 100% acc but they r also far more handy

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u/Goodspike 2h ago

Oh, I wonder if one of the old Texas Instruments calculators would allow you to work with fractions. I vaguely recall that on some of their scientific calculators.