31
84) 2604
252
84
84
0
The above long division is done removing the decimal points.
To find out where the decimal point goes, count the number of decimal places in 2.604. There are 3. Subtract the number of decimal places in 8.4. There’s 1, so subtract 1 from 3=2. Therefore, there has to be 2 decimal places in the quotient 31.
Counting from the right we get .31, and so that the decimal point doesn’t get lost we write this as 0.31. So 2.604÷8.4=0.31. Just to check, we add the number of decimal places in the divisor to those in the quotient and we should get the number of decimal places in the dividend. So 1+2=3 which matches the 3 decimal places in the dividend.