What is a Fraction?

Quite simply, a fraction is a way to express a number that falls between whole numbers on a number line. For example, examine the number line shown below:

What is the value that the ? is pointing at? You may know the answer, but it was not always that clear. Soon after the discovery of numbers, people found they needed a way to express these 'part numbers'. Fractions were born!

A fraction is made up of two parts: a numerator and a denominator. They are separated by a line. (The line means divided by). The numerator is on top of the line, and the denominator is on the bottom of the line. See the picture below:

But what do these numbers mean? Let's examine the fraction 1/2 in more detail. Look at the numberline between 0 and 1:

We are going to break this area into 2 equal parts. That is what the denominator tells you to do: divide whatever you are talking about into as many equal sized parts as is shown in the denominator (again, 2). Take a look:

We now have two equal 'pieces' of the space between 0 and 1. The numerator of the fraction tells us how many pieces we want to look at. In this case, the numerator is 1, so we want to travel 1 of the 2 pieces on the numberline, like so:

Where we end up is 1/2, as can be seen in the diagram above.

This is just a very basic overview of what a fraction is. Now you can head back to the fractions main page to learn more about different types of fractions, and how to work with fractions.