The Swedes among you think no doubt that today's blog is all about tribal warfare, as do the English speakers who were curious enough to run today's title through Google translate :-) Well, you're all wrong. Today, at Mattecentrums Math Labs where I volunteer, I learned all about unit fractions (stambråk in Swedish). What, you ask, is a unit fraction? It is a fraction whose numerator is 1. Any positive fraction can be written as the sum of unit fractions, in multiple ways, as you can see in the following example:
Apparently, the ancient Egyptians used unit fractions in their calculations, which makes them (both the Egyptians and the unit fractions) worthy of study.
It always makes me happy to learn more math, though admittedly I have a hard time seeing of what possible use unit fractions can be. Even my fellow volunteer, who also happens to be a full-time math teacher, had no good answer for that one, which did not, however, discount our mutual joy in discussing the topic.
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