Parts of a whole expressed as one number divided by another, or small portions of something larger.
From Latin 'fractio' meaning 'a breaking', from 'frangere' meaning 'to break'. The mathematical sense developed because fractions represent numbers 'broken' into parts, first used in English mathematics texts in the 14th century.
Fractions reveal the beautiful democracy of mathematics - every whole can be infinitely subdivided, and even the tiniest sliver like 1/1000 has the same logical standing as 1/2. Ancient Egyptians wrote fractions almost exclusively with 1 in the numerator, making calculations far more complex than our modern system.
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