Question

Alec has 14 fins to put on 3 bottle rockets. He puts the same number of fins on each rocket, and he uses as many fins as he can. How many fins does Alec put on each rocket

Answer 1

If Alec has 14 fins and he puts the same number of fins on each of the 3 bottle rockets, then he would use a total of 14/3 = 4.666666... fins on each rocket.

Since Alec cannot use a fraction of a fin, he must use a whole number of fins on each rocket. The closest whole number to 4.666666... is 5. Therefore, Alec would put 5 fins on each rocket, and use a total of 15 fins (5 fins per rocket x 3 rockets = 15 fins).

Since he uses as many fins as he can, there would be 1 fin left over that he cannot use.