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= Chapter One - Proportional Relationships =

Introduction


In the photo at the right, is this a giant woman holding a normal-sized vehicle, or a normal-sized lady holding a scale model of the vehicle? Obviously perspective plays a role in this visual trick.

The trick in the photo is that the size of the lady and the vehicle are not being measured by the same standard. So, the question to be asked is, "Relative to what?" If I say that I have a lot of money, does that mean $20 (relative to a little kid), or $2 million (relative to your math teacher)? Would eight Ironman costumes at a Halloween party be a lot, or not? Well, it depends on whether there were 30 people there, or 3000.

Here's another short, but powerful [|example].

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Suppose you baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies and then wanted to know how many chocolate chips you had used. You could tear into each one of the 46 cookies and count the chips, but that seems like a lot of work, and a lot of mess, and perhaps a lot of fun.

Another way would be to use a math tool that will be introduced in this chapter, called a **Proportion**. Although not every cookie would contain the exact same number of chips, it is reasonable to assume that they are close. Using a proportion, you could count the chips in just three cookies and estimate the total number of chips in all 46 cookies.

= From here to where? = Main Course Menu Main Text Menu Chapter One Glossary
 * Introduction
 * Section 1 - Ratios
 * Section 2 - Rates
 * Section 3 - Proportions
 * Homework for Chapter One