Question

Sam thought of a natural number, and then he added the next natural number to it. He got the sum of 75. What was Sam’s number?

Answer 1

37

Explanation:

Naturals numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ....

The difference in natural numbers are "1".

2 is "1" unit away from 1

3 is "1" unit away from 2

and so on...

So, if we let the unknown natural number be "x", then it follows that the next natural number would be "x + 1".

The question says that Sam added a natural number (let it be x) with the next natural number (that is x + 1) and got 75. So we can write:

x + x + 1 = 75

Now we add like terms and solve for x:

2x + 1 = 75

2x = 75 - 1

2x = 74

x = 74/2

x = 37

So Sam thought of the number 37