Sir John A Macdonald's Math Notebook
Contact Information
Email: drbell@uwo.ca
Subtraction of One Fraction from Another
Reduce the fractions to their simplest forms, reduce the resulting fractions to their common denominator and then subtract the smaller numerator from the larger one. If the two numbers consist of whole numbers and simple fractions, again subtract the smaller from the larger. If the fraction in the subtrahend is larger than that of the minuend then borrow 1 from the whole number in the minuend.
Examples
(1) Subtract from .
This is calculated as:
(2) Subtract from .
Express as . Then the difference in the whole numbers is and the difference in the fractions is so that the answer is .