er, i'll give it a shot, mel. have to say, tho, that i've never been much for clones (or teri's looks, for that matter). just hope the chocolate cat grant is sugar-free...
anyway, let's say you have an equation that says 1/x = 2/3 and you wanted to know what x is. well, one thing you could do would be to multiply both sides by x.
x * (1/x) = (2/3) * x
now, x * (1/x) is 1, so we have
1 = (2/3) * x
then you can multiply both sides by (3/2).
(3/2) * 1 = (3/2) * (2/3) * x
(3/2) * 1 is (3/2) and (3/2) * (2/3) is 1. also 1 * x is x.
so, that tells us that
3/2 = x
the rule of 3 basically sums all that up and tells you from the start that x = (1 * 3)/2.
very silly to memorize that rather than learning a more general approach, but there you are.
not sure if i can explain it using more english and less numbers, since the concept is based on manipulating fractions.
Paul
