| Table N-5 Selected Unicode Fractions and their HTML Entities | |||||||||
| ½ ½ ½ ½ | ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ | ¼ ¼ ¼ | ⅕ ⅕ ⅕ | ⅙ ⅙ ⅙ | ⅐ ⅐ | ⅛ ⅛ ⅛ | ⅑ ⅑ | ⅒ ⅒ | ⅟ ⅟ |
| ⅔ ⅔ ⅔ | ¾ ¾ ¾ | ⅖ ⅖ ⅖ | ⅚ ⅚ ⅚ | ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ | |||||
| ↉ ↉ | ⅗ ⅗ ⅗ | ⅝ ⅝ ⅝ | |||||||
| ⅘ ⅘ ⅘ | ⅞ ⅞ ⅞ | ||||||||
The fraction ↉ was introduced for the game of baseball, to represent the tenure of a pitcher who appears in a game, but retires no batters. This illustrates how some Unicode characters have been introduced for highly specialized purposes.
Unicode provides several symbols that might be employed for division:
| Table N-5-a Fraction, division, and ratio indicators | |||
| symbol | explanation | symbol | explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⁄ ⁄ ⁄ | fraction slash | ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ | obelus |
| ∕ ∕ | division slash | / / / | plain-text slash (solidus) |
| ∶ ∶ ∶ | ratio | ∷ ∷ ∷ | proportion |
A ratio might be written in these two equivalent ways:
| source | result |
|---|---|
| 6 ÷ 3 = 8 ÷ 4 | 6 ÷ 3 = 8 ÷ 4 |
| 6 ∶ 3 ∷ 8 ∶ 4 | 6 ∶ 3 ∷ 8 ∶ 4 |
Incidentally, Unicode has special charcters for two other common arithmetic operations:
| symbol | explanation |
|---|---|
| − − − | negation, subtraction |
| × × × | multiplication |
However, the ordinary plus sign + (+ or +) is used for addition.