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mossthedog t1_itzb4j6 wrote

Reply to comment by dot_comma in I couldn’t believe what my boss asked me to do on my first day by genuinelygrim

But 4 out of 5 is the ratio of people who are turned into burgers out of the total people who come to the clinic. 1 to 4 person makes it out per every 4 that become burgers. Ratios can be expressed as fractions, ratios (and rates and proportions) are fractions with meaning or units of measurement. 😃

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dot_comma t1_itzrphi wrote

Yes, it is true, ratios can be expressed as fractions, but not all ratios can be read the same way as fractions. Fractions are always read as a whole idea of something while ratios can be read pertaining to several things. 🤔

For example, in this post's context, both ways work because it's expressed in very similar ways:

  1. As a whole idea: 4:5 or ⅘ is the amount of people who get turned into food mass.

  2. As a ratio pertaining to different things: 4:1 where 4 people go "right," for every person that goes "left."

I do not mean to get into an argument, by the way (forgive me if it may seem to be viewed as such). If any, I'd take our conversation as an informative experience for both of us.

For a better analogy, let's do an example with burgers and beers: say, for every 2 burgers you buy, you get 3 cans of beer. Then we could say the ratio is 2:3, however we can't turn it into a fraction (⅔), because it takes two different things into account; not like 2 burgers out of 3 beers.

I dunno if I made it more confusing, but I hope I got my point across. 😂

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