Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Very difficult math question?
A row vector has 5 elements all real numbers. The sum of all the numbers is 36. The odd position numbers are in the ratio 1:3:5. The sum of the odd position numbers equals the difference of the even position numbers. The largest positive number is 3 times the smallest positive number. What are the numbers?
1 Answer
- Julius NLv 79 years agoFavorite Answer
a+b+c+d+e=36
c=3a
e=5a
a+c+e = d-b
d=3a
(if a is the smallest positive number?)
Standard form: a+b+c+d+e=36; -3a+c=0; -5a+e=0; a+b+c-d+e=0; -3a+d=0;
substitute/eliminate a = -1b-1c-1d-1e+36
substitute/eliminate b = -4/3c-1d-1e+36
substitute/eliminate c = +3/5e-0
substitute/eliminate d = +18
substitute/eliminate e = +30
Solution: a = 6; b = -36; c = 18; d = 18; e = 30;
(a, b, c, d, e) = (6, -36, 18, 18, 30)
but what if the smallest positive number were b, then we would have:
d = 3b
Standard form: a+b+c+d+e=36; -3a+c=0; -5a+e=0; a+b+c-d+e=0; -3b+d=0;
substitute/eliminate a = -1b-1c-1d-1e+36
substitute/eliminate b = -4/3c-1d-1e+36
substitute/eliminate c = +3/5e-0
substitute/eliminate d = +18
substitute/eliminate e = +20/3
Solution: a = 4/3; b = 6; c = 4; d = 18; e = 20/3;
(a, b, c, d, e) = (1.3333, 6, 4, 18, 6.6667)
but a is smaller than b, so this is not a valid solution.
