Doubling 1 2/3 Cup Water For Cooking | Wyzant Ask An Expert

Subject ZIP Search Search Find an Online Tutor Now Ask Ask a Question For Free Login Math. Cooking. Doubling 1 2/3 cup water for cooking I have a recipe that calls for 1 and 2/3 cup water, but I'm doubling the recipe to make enough food for everyone. Doubleing 1 cup is easy, but I've never been good with fractions, so I look at the measurements conversion chart on my fridge. It says 2/3 cup is equal to 5 oz. Ok, I think to myself, then 10 oz should be equal to whatever 2/3 cup twice would be, right? So I look for 10 oz on the chart to convert it back into cups, problem is the chart only goes to 8 oz. So I figure I'll take the cup equivilant of 8 oz and the cup equivalent of 2 oz (because 8+ 2 is 10) and that will give me my answer. The chart says 8 oz is equal to 1 cup, and 2oz is equal to 1/4 cups, so thats easy enough. 1 1/4 cups. Add the doubled 1 cup from the begining (1+1=2, duh) for a grand total of 3 and 1/4 cups water. Feeling very accomplished I ask my husband to get it for me, and he tells me my math is wrong, and proceeds to tell me how to add fractions, which goes way over my head, and argues that my chart must be wrong and that he can't fathom how I got my answer. I believe him that I must have done something wrong, because he is basically a mathematical genius, but the numbers are all right there on the chart. How can two things be equal but not still be equal once both values are doubled??? With the information from the chart, did I do the math right? It seemed simple enough, I'm not great with fractions but I'm not THAT stupid... I still aced my collage algebra tests. So why did I get 3 1/4 cups rather than 3 1/3 cups (which both my husband and our calculator says should be the correct answer...)? Follow • 3 Add comment More Report

2 Answers By Expert Tutors

Best Newest Oldest By: Best Newest Oldest What a wonderful, practical question !! Your husband, the math genius, should be able to look at a simple chart and conclude that it estimates some of the values instead of listing them exactly. As a math genius, I learned this when my wife estimated values of checks she had written and even rounded the numbers on check stubs to whole dollars [but only I had to balance the checking account]. It’s like inches on one edge of a ruler and centimeters on the opposite edge – they don’t quite line up [note: did you know that NASA lost the $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation?]. Thus, because my first car was a VW, I had to buy a set of metric wrenches to work on it. So, if you can measure 1 2/3 cups, the easy way to double it is to do that twice. Now, if 1 cup of water is 8 ounces. That means that 2/3 cup of water is 16/3 ounces, or 5 1/3 ounces [but who can measure 1/3 ounce without using spoons?], so the chart simply says it is 5 ounces. That means that doubling 2/3 of a cup makes 4/3 cups, or 10 2/3 ounces, so now when you use 10 ounces by trusting the chart, you are 2/3 ounce off from 10 [again, requiring the use of spoons if it is to be exact].   I still remember the wonderful homemade bread my mon, who was employed as a cook, often made – she measured salt in the palm of her hand.   I therefore conclude that you used the chart correctly. It wasn’t totally wrong, it just estimated (which us math geniuses have never quite learned is often a much easier, faster practice than doing everything to exacting standards). Upvote • 0 Downvote Comments • 6 More Report Report

07/14/17

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One way 2(1 1/3) 2(5/3) 10/3 3 1/3 Another 2(1 2/3) 2(1 + 2/3) 2(1) + 2(2/3) 2 + 4/3 2 + 1 + 1/3 3 1/3 Upvote • 0 Downvote Add comment More Report

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