Mastodawn

What would you say is the difference between "fraction" and "rational number"?

(Context: teaching an intro programming course and we have an example class for...these things. The existing materials call it "Fraction", but somehow I feel like RationalNumber or Rational would be better, but I can't articulate why.)

(Further context: I haven't looked up *anything* about this. Taking a "ask the hivemind first, do actual thinking later" approach...)

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Mathematical Synesthesia Mar 17

@ddrake a rational number is an equivalence class for a set of fractions. If a and b are integers with b positive and such that the only divisor that a and b have in common is 1, then the rational number a/b is the canonical representative of the equivalence class for the fractions of the form ma/mb where m is a nonzero integer

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💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱

@mathematicalsynesthesia @ddrake
"a rational number is an equivalence class for a set of fractions" - right, and more precisely a rational is a decimal, whereas fractions aren't decimals.