Weird Percentage Question

[c.clavin]

Hi all. I'm trying to find a number that is exactly 4% of an original number. When I use the formula "=1473*0.96" I get 1414.08 then when I go to find the percentage change between 1414.08 and 1473 I get 4.17% What gives?

The number I should be getting is a number like 1416.34 Is there another formula I could use to get a more accurate number? It seems like a weird issue. Thanks.

 

[offthelip]

That is correct, this is because you reduced the value by 4% by multiplying by 0.96. But now to get back to 100% you have to increase by 100/96 = 1.041667, i.e slightly more than 4%
It is more obvious if say reduce 100 by 20% or 1/5 which gets to 80, now to increase back to 100 you need 20 which is 1/4 of 80 not 1/5.

 

[c.clavin]

Interesting. As you can tell I'm not really a math guy haha. Is there a way to get the exact value of 4% of a number this way?

 

[offthelip]

Depends waht you mean by 4% of a number, you appeared to be calculating the 4% reduction in a number by multiplying by 0.96, what you did was correct if you were trying to reduce the number by 4%
If you actually want 4% of a number just multiply it by 0.04 that is exactly 4% of the number. Just don't think that by then increasing it by 4% you will get back to the original number because you won't