Saturday, January 27, 2007

I'm a dork.

You all knew this, but I'm about to confirm it. I was really excited last night when I was prompted to use none other than the crazy math I learned in high school and college. I seriously never thought I'd see it again; I was wrong. Here's the story:

Ok, so I'm working this word puzzle book, and it gives me a "brainteaser". It reads


Two forks plus three spoons equals $1.48. Three forks and two spoons equals $1.47. How much does one fork and one spoon cost?


So I set up the equations in order to figure this out scientifically. They should look like this:

2x + 3y = 1.48
3x + 2y = 1.47

The next step is to isolate one of the variables. I chose to isolate x. So I took the top equation and moved things around mathematically until
x = 0.74 - 1.5y

Then you substitute what x is equal to into the other equation so that the equation only contains one variable. It ends up looking something like this:
3(0.74 - 1.5y) + 2y = 1.47
Obviously multiply through the parentheses, add up the like variables, and it comes down to 2.5y = 0.75, so y = 0.30
After substituting y back into either equation, you solve for x. You find that x = 0.29
You can put them back through the original problem to check yourself.
Yay, I used math past college. It's a brand new day.
Plus, I get to see Katie Rae today, who's here nannying for a family for the weekend.

3 comments:

Rage said...

about the math thing...honestly, I have no words for that.

Anonymous said...

i got excited too when you said you used some old math...

then i watched you break it down and apply it...

which reminded me of why i never liked it in the first place.

-will

Anna said...

That is hysterical. I'm always excited when I can use old math, too. Haven't found a use for my trigonometry yet, though.
I'm glad the interview in KC went well. Keep me posted!