Problema Solution
The product of two whole numbers is 360, and their sum is less than 100. What are the possibilities for the two numbers?
Answer provided by our tutors
let x and y represent the two whole numbers
The product of two whole numbers is 360
xy = 360
y = 360/x
their sum is less than 100:
x + y < 100
plug y = 360/x into the last equation and simplify:
x^2 - 100x + 360 < 0
if we draw the graph for y = x^2 - 100x + 360 we see that for every integer x in the interval [4, 96] the inequality holds
click here to see the graph of the equation:
thus the possible solutions are all the number in the interval [4, 96] that divide 360 (since y = 360/x is integer:
x = 4, y = 360/4 = 90
x = 5, y = 360/5 = 72
x = 6, y = 360/6 = 60
and so on.