Problema Solution

A student open a mathematics book to two facing pages. The product of the page numbers is 702. Find the first and second page numbers.

Answer provided by our tutors

Let's have x represent the left page and (x+1) be the right page. Now the equation will look like this:

x(x+1)=702

Rewritten as:

x^2+x-702=0

Factor this to get:

(x-26)(x+27)=0


Solve for x:

x=26

x=-27

The sensible answer is 26 so the pages are

26 and 27


1st page=26

2nd page=27