Ignore the negative sign and multiply the decimals as though they were both whole numbers. Then place the decimal point in the product by counting the number of decimal places in each factor.
- 34.72
Practice makes perfect
We want to find this product.
- 6.2 * 5.6
Let's ignore the negative sign for a moment. Before we find the exact product, we can estimate the multiplication by rounding the decimal numbers. We will round 6.2 and 5.6 to 6 because this is the closest whole number.
6 * 6=36The product of 6.2 and 5.6 is about 36. To find the exact product, we multiply just as we do with two whole numbers. At first, we ignore any decimal points.
Then we place the decimal point in the product by counting the number of decimal places in each factor.
The product of 6.2 and 5.6 is 34.72, which is pretty close to our estimate. This means that - 6.2 * 5.6 is - 34.72.
