Question

The florist ordered tulips in bunches of 4, daisies in bunches of 10 and carnations I. Bunches of 8.

If she ordered the same number of each number of each kind of flower, what is the smallest number of each tulips, daisies, and carnations she could have ordered

Answer 1

tulips: 10 bunches, daisies: 4 bunches, and carnations: 5 bunches

totaling 40 of each type of flower

Explanation:

This problem involves finding the Least Common Multiple (LCM) of the three numbers: 4, 10, and 8 (which are the number of flowers that come in each bunch type).

Therefore we proceed to write each of them in prime factor form to investigate what factors we need to include for the LCM we want to find.

`4 = 2^2\\10=2*5\\8=2^3`

Therefore, we need to include for the LCM the following factors:
`2^3 * 5 =8*5 =40`

We need a total of 40 of each flower type which means;

For the tulips (which come in bunches of 4):
`(40)/(4) =10` bunches.

For the daisies (which come in bunches of 10):
`(40)/(10) =4` bunches.

For the carnations (which come in bunches of 8):
`(40)/(8) =5` bunches.