## Whole Number Coefficients

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Jynelle Brillantes 1E
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:02 am

### Whole Number Coefficients

When writing empirical formulas, is there a trick to knowing what to multiply your decimals by in order to get whole numbers, or do I have to guess and check?

For example, I got coefficients of 1, 1, and 2.381 in a problem I was working through. What should I multiply 2.381 by in order to get a whole number?

alexis castro 1B
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:02 am

### Re: Whole Number Coefficients

Ya it is pretty much guess and check but my TA said you shouldn't be multiplying by anything bigger than 4 or 5

Dabin Kang 1B
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:39 am
Been upvoted: 1 time

### Re: Whole Number Coefficients

You can also convert them to fractions and multiply by the denominator.

For example, you can convert 1.666 to $\frac{5}{3}$ and multiply by 3 to get 5.

Alma Cruz 1A
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:40 am

### Re: Whole Number Coefficients

Try to multiply it by a number that will give you the decimal closest to a whole number (if yet not given a whole number).
For example, let's say your number is 1.33, one would multiply it by a 3 in order to obtain 3.9970..., which would give you the closest to a whole number, 4.

Timothy Kao 1B
Posts: 28
Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:39 am

### Re: Whole Number Coefficients

From my experience, when you're first starting to do these types of problems, it's a lot of guessing and checking, but after you've done enough practice problems, you get to the point where when you see the decimals you'll intuitively know what you should multiply by.

Alejandra Reyna 1E
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:58 pm

### Re: Whole Number Coefficients

I definitely agree with Dabin Kang. It becomes much easier when you convert to fractions rather than multiplying by big numbers from the beginning. It lessens the time to determine your final formulas and is a lot simpler.

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