Noticing Fractions in a Sidewalk

fraction-circle

My daughters didn’t want to admit to knowing me, when I stopped to take a picture of the sidewalk along a back street during our trip to Jeju. But aren’t those some wonderful fractions?

What do you see? What do you wonder?

Here is one of the relationships I noticed in the outer ring:

\frac{4 \frac {2}{2}}{20} = \frac {1}{4}

sidewalk

And this one’s a little trickier:

\frac{1 \frac {1}{2}}{12} = \frac {1}{8}

Can you find it in the picture?

Each square of the sidewalk is made from four smaller tiles, about 25 cm square, cut from lava rock. Some of the sidewalk tiles are cut from mostly-smooth rock, some bubbly, and some half-n-half.

I wonder how far we could go before we had to repeat a circle pattern?

Join the Summer Math Photo Challenge

How to Play: Take a walk around your neighborhood to see what sort of math you can find. Post a photo to Twitter or Instagram, with hashtags to mark it as a Summer Math Challenge photo. Describe what you’re seeing. Re-tweet and share others’ photos if you like. Encourage your friends to play!

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