Okay, so today I wanted to walk through something I did, just a simple calculation: figuring out 180 divided by 18. Nothing too crazy, but I like to actually track how I do these things sometimes.
Getting Started
First off, I looked at the two numbers, 180 and 18. Right away, you notice they look kinda similar, right? Like, 180 is just 18 with a zero tacked onto the end. That usually makes me think the division is gonna be pretty clean. My gut feeling was that 18 would go into 180 a nice, round number of times.
I didn’t jump straight to a calculator or anything. I like to try and see the logic first. So, I thought about the relationship. We know 18 fits into 18 exactly one time. That’s the easy part.
Working it Out
Now, that zero in 180… what does it do? It basically means we’re dealing with ten times 18. Think about multiplication:
- 18 times 1 equals 18.
- So, 18 times 10 should equal 180. You just add the zero.
It seemed pretty straightforward. If 18 times 10 gives you 180, then it makes sense that 180 divided by 18 must give you 10.
Just to be double sure, because sometimes my brain plays tricks on me, especially with numbers, I sort of mentally checked it. Does 18 times 10 really equal 180? Yep, it does. So, the division must work out to 10.
I could have also done it the old-fashioned long division way, just to be methodical. You write 18 outside the little division house, and 180 inside.
You’d ask, how many times does 18 go into the first part of 180, which is 18? Goes in one time. So you write ‘1’ up top. Then, 1 times 18 is 18. You write that below the 18 inside, and subtract. 18 minus 18 is zero.
Then you bring down the next digit from 180, which is the zero. Now you have 00 down there. How many times does 18 go into 0? Zero times. So you write ‘0’ up top next to the ‘1’. And that’s it. You get 10 up top, with no remainder.
Conclusion
So, both ways I tried – spotting the pattern and doing the step-by-step long division – ended up at the same place. The answer is definitely 10. It’s simple math, yeah, but going through the motions helps keep the brain sharp, I guess. That was my little practice for the day!
