Wednesday, May 18, 2011

How do you change decimals into percents?

To convert
a decimal into a percentage, all you have to do is multiply the decimal by 100 and add the
percent symbol.

For example, 0.14 x 100 = 14%


The word percent means per hundred (in
Latin, the word for hundred is centum). This is why we use the number 100
when were converting numbers into percentages. Lets take a closer look at why this
works.

In the number 0.14, the 1 is in the tenths place
and the 4 is in the hundredths place, so we call this fourteen hundredths. If you divide a
square into 100 sections, each section equals one hundredth, or 1/100. You can test this by
doing the division: 1/100 = .01

If you fill in 14 of the
sections in your square, you have fourteen hundredths, or 14/100. 14 divided by 100 =
0.14

Remember, the word percent means per hundred. If we
have 14/100, we dont even have to do the division, we can see that we have 14%. If we do the
division, or if we already had a decimal number to begin with, we can undo the division by using
its inverse operation: multiplication. 0.14 x 100 = 14.


Here are a few more examples:

0.857 x 100
=85.7%

0.29643 x 100 = 29.643, rounded to two digits after the decimal,
29.64%

1.44 x 100 = 144%


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