# What is unclear in 'what does the 1 mean?' [closed]

I do not understand why this was unilaterally closed as unclear.

Some of the comments and the screenshot here are inaccurate. This was the original post that was closed, that you can see:

• differs from the new one above,
• but contains helpful comments that veritably answers my question (I would have accepted if they answered), which prove some users' comprehension of my question. Otherwiser, the users would not have commented and in so doing answered my question.
• After your (numerous!) questions here asking for intuition about extremely basic properties of fractions, I still really have no idea what it is you're actually asking. It seems that you just want increasingly convoluted analogies between objects. I've made comments to this effect before: At some level, you just need to actually gain some experience in math rather than continually looking for some short / easy way to have intuition about every single equation. – user296602 Aug 2 '16 at 21:13
• Request also posted here – user99914 Aug 2 '16 at 21:26
• @T.Bongers You wrote above that you have no idea what it is I am actually asking. Are you saying that you do not understand this question (copied and pasted from my question): In $\frac{a}{c} = \frac{\color{red}{1}}{{c}/{a}}$, what does the $\color{red}{1}$ mean? – Accounting Aug 2 '16 at 21:28
• If we were to answer the title literally, the answer would be "1 is the identity element in $\mathbb R$". I guess this is not what you want? – user99914 Aug 2 '16 at 21:35
• @ArcticChar No, because I defined 'a' to mean '# of apples' and 'c' as '# of chestnuts' in that question. Then what would 1 mean? – Accounting Aug 2 '16 at 22:08
• @ArcticChar Sorry; I forgot to write # of. I deleted my previous comment and rewrote. – Accounting Aug 2 '16 at 22:08
• So $a, c$ are all numbers, $a/c, c/a$ are also number, thus $1$ in $\frac{1}{c/a}$ will be .... well, the identity element in $\mathbb R$. – user99914 Aug 2 '16 at 22:10
• I don't think the question is unclear, but I also don't think it's mathematics. It's closer to interpretative dance. – Matt Samuel Aug 2 '16 at 23:16
• @ArcticChar, it seems that the OP is treating $a$ and $c$ as quantities and not as (pure) numbers. (A quantity is a pure number with a unit of measurement.) I think the OP means to ask what the unit of measurement of "1" is. – Joel Reyes Noche Aug 3 '16 at 0:24
• @JoelReyesNoche Many thanks for the constructive aid. Yes; I think that you have phrased my question better. I have asked this at math.stackexchange.com/q/1883840/53259. – Accounting Aug 5 '16 at 22:44