Editing Location arithmetic (section)

==== Division, remainder ====

Division can be carried out by successive subtractions: the quotient is the number of time the divisor can be subtracted from the dividend, and the remainder is what is left after all the possible subtractions.

This process, which can be very long, may be made efficient if instead of the divisor we subtract multiple of the divisor, and computations are easier if we restrict to multiple by a power of 2.

In fact, this is what we do in the [[long division]] method.