Division and subtraction are two of the four basic operations of arithmetic, along with addition and multiplication. They are both used to reduce or split numbers into smaller parts. But how are they related? And how can we use one to perform the other? In this article, we will explore the connection between division and subtraction, and learn some simple methods to divide numbers using only addition or subtraction.
What is Division?
Division is the process of finding how many times one number is contained within another number. For example, if we have 20 apples and we want to divide them evenly among 4 people, we can ask: how many apples does each person get? To answer this question, we need to find out how many times 4 goes into 20, or in other words, what is 20 divided by 4. The answer is 5, which means that each person gets 5 apples.
We can write this division problem as:
����204=5frac204=5
or
20���4=520div4=5
The number that is being divided is called the dividend (20 in this example), the number that divides it is called the divisor (4 in this example), and the result is called the quotient (5 in this example).
Sometimes, the dividend is not exactly divisible by the divisor, which means that there is some part of the dividend that remains after dividing. For example, if we have 23 apples and we want to divide them among 4 people, we can ask: how many apples does each person get, and how many apples are left over? To answer this question, we need to find out how many times 4 goes into 23, and what is the remainder. The answer is 5 with a remainder of 3, which means that each person gets 5 apples, and there are 3 apples left over.
We can write this division problem as:
����234=5�����3frac234=5textR3
or
23���4=5�����323div4=5textR3
The part of the dividend that remains after dividing is called the remainder (3 in this example).
What is Subtraction?
Subtraction is the process of finding the difference between two numbers. For example, if we have 10 apples and we give away 3 apples, we can ask: how many apples do we have left? To answer this question, we need to find out how much smaller is 10 than 3, or in other words, what is 10 minus 3. The answer is 7, which means that we have 7 apples left.
We can write this subtraction problem as:
10−3=710−3=7
The number that is being subtracted from is called the minuend (10 in this example), the number that is subtracted is called the subtrahend (3 in this example), and the result is called the difference (7 in this example).
How are Division and Subtraction Related?
Division and subtraction are related in two ways:
- Division can be seen as repeated subtraction. For example, to divide 20 by 4, we can repeatedly subtract 4 from 20 until we reach zero, and count how many times we did that. This gives us the quotient. If there is a remainder, it is the last number that we subtracted from. For example:
������������20−beginaligned20−
