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Find two positive numbers whose difference is 5 and whose product is 864.Answer How to enter your answer (opens in new window) 5 Pointsandev

Find two positive numbers whose difference is 5 and whose product is 864.Answer How-example-1
User ConorLuddy
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1 Answer

27 votes
27 votes

For this problem, we need to find two positive numbers whose difference is 5 and the product is 864.

We will call the numbers: x and y. So we can write the following expressions:


\begin{gathered} x-y=5\\ \\ x\cdot y=864 \end{gathered}

We can rewrite the first expression as:


x=5+y

Then we can replace the expression above with the second one:


\begin{gathered} (5+y)\cdot y=864\\ \\ y^2+5y-864=0\\ \\ \\ \end{gathered}

We can solve the expression above to determine one of the numbers.


\begin{gathered} y_(1,2)=(-5\pm√((5)^2-4\cdot1\cdot(-864)))/(2)\\ \\ y_(1,2)=(-5\pm√(3481))/(2)\\ \\ y_(1,2)=(-5\pm59)/(2)\\ \\ y_1=(-5+59)/(2)=27\\ \\ y_2=(-5-59)/(2)=-32 \end{gathered}

The only possible value we can use is "27". We can find the other number by replacing "y" on the first expression with 27. We have:


x=5+27=32

The numbers are 27 and 32.

User Selene
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