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Is 9 is greater than 2,so 7.09 must be greater than 7.2.

1 Answer

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According to that reasoning, you would say that 90 is
greater than 2,000,000 .

The value doesn't only depend on the digit. It also depends
on the PLACE the digit is in.

When they're both in the same PLACE, 7.09 is greater than 7.02 .

But if you have 7.09 and 7.2 , the '2' is in a PLACE where any digit
is worth ten times as much as if it were in the place where the '9' is.
So 7.2 is greater than 7.09 . It's actually about 1.6% bigger.

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