Simplifying Fractions Is Book Burning
A student melodramatically compares simplifying fractions to burning the Library of Alexandria.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2018-11-23-simplifying-fractions-is-book-burning/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
A: "What makes book-burning a tragedy? Why do we mourn the lost library at Alexandria?" A: "It's the destruction of knowledge. Diverse information reduced to identical ash."
Teacher (holding 28/20, 30/70): "Be that as it may, I'm asking you to simplify these fractions to lowest terms."
Student: "Lowest terms indeed. Throughout history, isn't that what your kind have always sought?"