Sum of numbers

[Math Tutor]

1. Two numbers have a sum of 87. The larger of the numbers is twice the smaller. What are the numbers ?

[Math Tutor]

So we have two mumbers. Let's say that the smaller is x.
We know that the bigger number is twice the smaller so Cornelius the bigger number is 2x.

The second thing we know is that the two numbers sum is 87.
So we have the following equation:
x + 2x = 87
3x = 87
x = 87:3
x = 29

So the smaller number is 29(because x = 29)
the bigger number is 2x = 2.29 = 58

[Frank Blaine]

Hi,
This is an old well-known problem - the answer is to divide the given number into equal parts, every part should be as nearest as possible to e. The proof involves some calculus (nullifying the derivative of the function (a/x)^x, where a is the given number, etc.) and in our case the answer is
271 = 2.71 + 2.71 + . . + 2.71 (100 addends)
You can convince yourself using Windows Calculator (Scientific View) that
2.71¹⁰⁰ = 1.981203504121906450853045625988e+43, what is larger than, for example:
(271/99)⁹⁹ = 1.977313499621636530945513368702e+43 or
(271/101)¹⁰¹ = 1.9653487473452882211130491805545e+43 etc.

[Guest]

At first we make linear equation according to the question
let,
x= smaller number
2x=larger number (we know that larger number is the twice of the the smaller)
equation is:
x + 2x = 87
3x = 87
x = 87/3
x = 29
smaller number is 29
the larger number is 2x i.e 2(29) = 58
for more assistance on how to solve linear equations visit the link http://math.tutorvista.com/algebra/linear-equations.html