Simplify the operation
Reduce (simplify) the fractions to their lowest terms equivalents:
- To reduce a fraction to the lowest terms equivalent: divide both the numerator and denominator by their greatest common factor, GCF.
The fraction: - 3,980/937
- 3,980/937 is already reduced to the lowest terms.
The numerator and denominator have no common prime factors:
- 3,980 = 22 × 5 × 199
- 937 is a prime number.
- GCF (3,980; 937) = 1
The fraction: - 3,990/941
- 3,990/941 is already reduced to the lowest terms.
The numerator and denominator have no common prime factors:
- 3,990 = 2 × 3 × 5 × 7 × 19
- 941 is a prime number.
- GCF (3,990; 941) = 1
Calculate the common denominator
The common denominator is nothing else than the least common multiple (LCM) of the denominators of the fractions.
To calculate the LCM, we need the prime factorization of the denominators:
937 is a prime number.
941 is a prime number.
Multiply all the unique prime factors: if there are repeating prime factors we only take them once, and only the ones having the highest exponent (the highest powers).
LCM (937, 941) = 937 × 941 = 881,717
Calculate the expanding number of each fraction:
Divide the LCM by the denominator of each fraction.
- 3,980/937 ⟶ 881,717 ÷ 937 = (937 × 941) ÷ 937 = 941
- 3,990/941 ⟶ 881,717 ÷ 941 = (937 × 941) ÷ 941 = 937
Make the denominators of the fractions the same:
- Expand each fraction: multiply both its numerator and denominator by its corresponding expanding number, calculated above.
- This way all the fractions will have the same denominator:
- 3,980/937 = - (941 × 3,980)/(941 × 937) = - 3,745,180/881,717
- 3,990/941 = - (937 × 3,990)/(937 × 941) = - 3,738,630/881,717