So we wan't to know what is one third of 36. Lets say the number we are looking for is x. Then we can write this this way: x=36*(1/3). So now we get: x=36/3 and the result is: x=12. We can also do it another way: if we wan't to divide 36 into three equal parts we would get: 12 + 12 + 12 so one third of 36 is again 12.