Equivalent decimals

Equivalent decimals are equal decimals. A decimal number can be written in different forms, which are mathematically equal.

For example, 0.80 is equivalent to 0.800, 0.8000 and 0.80000. In fact, you can put as many trailing zeros as you want.

As you may have observed in the above example, equivalent decimals are obtained by putting trailing zeros at the end of a terminating decimal number. When additional zeros are put at the end of any decimal number after the decimal digits, they do not change the value of the number. Thus, putting these additional zeros gives you a new number, which is equivalent to, or equal to, the original decimal number.

Similarly, you can identify equivalent decimals. When two decimal numbers have the decimal at the same position, and all other digits are at the same positions in both the decimal numbers, they will be considered equivalent in spite of the presence of trailing zeros after the decimal digits.


You might like to see a few solved examples on this topic, or you might like to test yourself from this worksheet.

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