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A simple question but I'll ask anyway, I am writing a report about speed improvements on a particular server task. Originally the task took 4 minutes (240 seconds), it now takes just 10 seconds. How can this be represented as a percentage? I think what I'd like it to say is "this shows a X% improvement, you spent your money wisely". I assume this is possible? I came up with either 230% (doesn't seem right) or 958% (also doesn't seem right).

Quick note: I couldn't find a tag which this falls under (percentage or algebra) so I've stuck it under homework, maybe someone more experienced on here can amend that for me.

Vikram
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Chris
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  • You are now saving 230 seconds on the task that needed 240 seconds, so how many seconds will you save if task needed 100 seconds? $(100*230)/240=95.83 \Rightarrow 95.83 %$ increase in performance – Vikram Aug 22 '13 at 10:03
  • Alternatively, what percentage of 240 is 10? => (100*10/240)=4.167 – Vikram Aug 22 '13 at 10:05

1 Answers1

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$$\frac{10}{240}\times100=4.1\dot6$$ Now if ten is $4.1\dot6$% then thats a $100 - 4.1\dot6$% improvement.

Ali Caglayan
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  • Which would appear to be the 95.83 number that Vikram found above. I'm happy to believe that answer, it just doesn't sound right to me. Tell me, if it were a 100% improvement, would that really equal 0? – Chris Aug 22 '13 at 10:09
  • 240% improvement – Ali Caglayan Aug 22 '13 at 10:12
  • so given that 10s is only a little above 0, presumably that makes it a 230% improvement? – Chris Aug 22 '13 at 10:13
  • @ChrisNicholson, the word "improvement" used does not belong to any math term – Vikram Aug 22 '13 at 10:19
  • I was wondering if that was what made this difficult. I think from a maths point of view the best answer is probably 96% decrease in time. – Chris Aug 22 '13 at 11:28
  • @ChrisNicholson, correct, even better->time reduced by 96% – Vikram Aug 22 '13 at 14:34