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Jen, I'm sorry to report it, but $$\frac12 + \frac{12}{13} = \frac{13+24}{2\cdot 13} = \frac{37}{26}.$$ The symbols for counting numbers and fractions are agreed upon all over the world, and addition for these numbers is easily understood. Some other important numbers have their own "nice" symbols such as $\sqrt 2$ and $\pi$; but others do not, such as $\sqrt 2 + 3$ and $\pi+3$ and $\sqrt 2+\pi$. There are simply more numbers than there are symbols for them! Of course, you can use your calculator to find out approximately what these sums are by using decimal approximations. Thus, $\frac{\pi}2$ is approximately $1.571$, while $\frac{12}{13}$ is approximately $.923$. From this you know that Chris | ||||||||||||
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