Please feel free to point out anywhere I have erred in this question as that is the way I will learn more.
I recently stumbled upon a question on yahoo answers that said, "A cruise ship sails with a total of 225passengers. There are 75 passengers on each of the first two decks. How many passengers are on the third deck?". Now I said that since we do not know how many decks there are we could not find a definite answer and have to use an algebraic expression which would be the following:225 or T-(d1+d2)/r (the / means divided by) WhereT=total number of passengers
d1=deck 1
d2=deck 2
r=remaining decks however I realized that we cannot know whether the distribution of people is equal all throughout r so my question is how do we show infinite or finite possibilities of uneven distribution in this?
I recently stumbled upon a question on yahoo answers that said, "A cruise ship sails with a total of 225passengers. There are 75 passengers on each of the first two decks. How many passengers are on the third deck?". Now I said that since we do not know how many decks there are we could not find a definite answer and have to use an algebraic expression which would be the following:225 or T-(d1+d2)/r (the / means divided by) WhereT=total number of passengers
d1=deck 1
d2=deck 2
r=remaining decks however I realized that we cannot know whether the distribution of people is equal all throughout r so my question is how do we show infinite or finite possibilities of uneven distribution in this?
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It doesn't look like there's a meaningful solution for other than three decks. The question asks for a specific number, not an expected number or a distribution. So:
75 + 75 + x = 225
leads to the simple answer x = 75.
By the way, watch your order of operations. As typed, / for division is conventionally done before addition and subtraction, so T-(d1+d2)/r means T - ((d1 + d2) / r) on just about any algebraic calculator or computer programming language. Use (T - (d1 + d2))/r or (T - d1 - d2)/r instead.
See: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Solidus.htm…
75 + 75 + x = 225
leads to the simple answer x = 75.
By the way, watch your order of operations. As typed, / for division is conventionally done before addition and subtraction, so T-(d1+d2)/r means T - ((d1 + d2) / r) on just about any algebraic calculator or computer programming language. Use (T - (d1 + d2))/r or (T - d1 - d2)/r instead.
See: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Solidus.htm…