h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I used to know, but I can't for the life of me remember how it is you do long division...

Cat

It's dead easy

First you open a new browser window, then you type http://www.google.com in the address bar. When the Google front page comes up you type in the search field. One of the hits will be this one http://www.mathsisfun.com/long_division2.html

Repeat after me:
Google is my friend, Google is my friend, Google is my friend

No wonder I can't remember how to do it, I don't remember any of this stuff!

Thanks though!

Bah! Why use Google when you have the guide to life, the universe, and everything right here at your fingertips?! It's much better to ask here and have someone else do the google search for you.

I miss the days when google indexed h2g2.

I was taught two ways to do long division; I've always thought that way is the much more confusing of the two.

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Taking the problem they gave, 25 (the divisor) into 435 (the dividend)

It's easy to work out that 10 25's are 250, so you take those away from 435 and add ten to your answer.

Your dividend now equals 185, and your answer 10.

If 10 25's are 250, it's not too hard to work out that 5 25's are 125, so take this away and add 5 to your answer.

Your dividend now equals 60, and your answer 15.

Two 25's are 50, so take this away and add 2 to your answer.

Your dividend equals 10 (this is less than 25, so must be the remainder) and answer equals 17.

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This method tends to be regarded as mathematically inexact for some reason, and can take a little bit longer with really big numbers, but is much easier to understand, to my mind.

B