Jean Montgomery, Austin Community College
Decimals
Place Value System
Early civilizations in China and India used an Abacus to help them with establishing place value. This is where our current Place Value System of numbers comes from. Each numeral in a decimal number has a value based on its location from the decimal point.
| Place Value Table | |||||||||
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | . | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Ten Thousands | Thousands | Hundreds | Tens | Ones | Decimal Point | Tenths | Hundredths | Thousandths | Ten Thousandths |
Increasing value  |
 Decreasing value |
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SAFETY ALERT:
It is very important to always include the leading zero to a decimal that does not have a whole number. This will help you to avoid potential life threatening errors when you are calculating a drug dose.
Converting a Fraction to a Decimal
Many students have what is termed "fraction phobia" and would prefer to avoid fractions all together. Most of the time, it is a good idea to change a fraction into a decimal because it can make your math seem easier to compute. You can do this by dividing the numerator by the denominator using your calculator.