What Does Reciprocals Mean In Mathematics

The reciprocal of 2 is 1 2 half the reciprocal of 10 is 1 10 0 1 when we multiply a number by its reciprocal we get 1.

What does reciprocals mean in mathematics.

It can mean many different things depending on the context. Every number has a reciprocal except 0 1 0 is undefined multiplying a number by its reciprocal. A reciprocal or multiplicative inverse is simply one of a pair of numbers that when multiplied together equal 1 if you can reduce the number to a fraction finding the reciprocal is simply a matter of transposing the numerator and the denominator. I ll assume you mean the reciprocal as in the multiplicative inverse.

In mathematics the harmonic mean sometimes called the subcontrary mean is one of several kinds of average and in particular one of the pythagorean means typically it is appropriate for situations when the average of rates is desired. For the real numbers b 1 a. It may help to remember that reciprocal comes from the latin reciprocus meaning returning like going to the shops and then returning home again. The harmonic mean can be expressed as the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of the given set of observations.

As you can see by looking at the first row the reciprocal of the number 3 is 1 3 as a fraction 0 33 as a decimal and 3 1 as an exponent. If you have a number a it s reciprocal is the number b such that a b 1. The reciprocal of a number is.