Kathleen bought candy at the movie theater for her friends. She bought 4 1/2 pounds of candy for 3 friends to share. How many pounds of candy will each of her friends have? (work shown if possible please and ty)

To find out how many pounds of candy each friend will have, you need to divide the total amount of candy by the number of friends.

Kathleen bought 4 1/2 pounds of candy. First, let's convert that to an improper fraction to make the division easier.

4 1/2 is the same as (4 × 2 + 1)/2, which equals 9/2 pounds of candy because 4 times 2 is 8, plus 1 makes 9, and we keep the original denominator of 2.

Now that we have an improper fraction, we can divide this by the 3 friends.

(9/2) ÷ 3

It is easier to divide by a whole number if we convert it into a fraction, and any whole number can be written as itself over 1.

So now the equation looks like this: (9/2) ÷ (3/1)

When dividing fractions, we multiply by the reciprocal of the divisor. The reciprocal is what you get when you flip the numerator and the denominator of a fraction.

The reciprocal of 3/1 is 1/3. So:

(9/2) × (1/3)

Now we multiply the numerators together, and the denominators together:

9 × 1 = 9 2 × 3 = 6

So: (9/2) × (1/3) = 9/6

Now we simplify the fraction:

9/6 can be simplified by dividing both the numerator and the denominator by their greatest common factor, which is 3.

9 ÷ 3 = 3 6 ÷ 3 = 2

So, 9/6 simplifies to 3/2, which can also be written as 1 1/2 or one and a half pounds.

Therefore, each of Kathleen's 3 friends will get 1 1/2 pounds of candy to share.