I recently edited an image to bring it from 194px high to 140px high
I'd like to describe how much shorter the image is (or, how different the two are in general)
There are two ways to compare the numbers:
A) Divide 140/194 to get 0.7216
Which I can express as, "The new image is 72% of the height of the original image", or possibly, "The new image is 28% shorter than the original"(?)
B) Divide 194/140 and get 1.3857
Which I could express as saying, "The original image is 138% the size of the new image" or, "The old image is 38% bigger"
Is this the same thing? Is "38% larger" actually equal to "28% smaller"?
Best Answer
Yes. 28% smaller is the same as 39% larger. $$\begin{eqnarray}\frac{x}{y}&=&0.72\\\frac{y}{x}&=&\frac{1}{0.72}=1.39\end{eqnarray}$$ You can see how one ratio transforms into the other - by inversion, not subtraction.