Now we're going to learn about simplifying fractions. So simplifying fractions means finding an equivalent fraction with the smallest numerator and denominator possible. It's also called reducing fractions. So if you ever see that term or you're asked to reduce a fraction, it's the same as simplifying it. And to do this, we can divide the numerator and denominator by their greatest common factor. Because remember, as long as we divide the numerator and denominator by the same number, it's going to give us an equivalent fraction. Let's use this one as an example. 16 over 40. The first thing that we want to do is find the greatest common factor of 16 and 40, which happens to be eight. The greatest common factor, 16 and 40 is eight. That means that we need to divide both parts of this fraction by eight. So for our numerator, 16 divided by eight will give us 2. Forty divided by eight will give us five. So this simplifies to two over five or two fifths. So we would say that 16/40 simplifies or reduces to 2/5. Here's another way that you can simplify the fraction. If you can't think of the greatest common factor, just start with any factor you can think of and then keep simplifying until the numerator and denominator have no common factor other than one. That's how you know that it's completely simplified. So we're going to use that approach with that same fraction that we just saw before. So say if we couldn't think of the greatest common factor of 16 and 40, but we knew that they did have four as a common factor. So we can divide both parts of the fraction by four, that will give us four tenths. And then we would look at that fraction and say, can I simplify this even more? And to figure that out, we would try to see if there's anything that we can divide both four and ten by two. They have any common factor and they do, they can both be divided by two. So we would divide both parts of this fraction by two and we would get two over five, which, as we saw before, was the same answer that we got when we divided by the greatest common factor. So it's no problem if you can't think of the greatest common factor. Just start by dividing by any factor you can think of and then keep going until it's totally simplified. We know that two fifths is simplified because two and five have no common factor other than one. So to review with simplifying fractions, the goal is to find an equivalent fraction with the smallest numerator and denominator possible. We can divide the numerator and denominator by a common factor to simplify it. Ideally we would use the greatest common factor. But if you can't find the greatest common factor, just start with any common factor and keep going until it's completely simplified.