Question

A mover is loading an elevator with many identical 48-pound boxes. The mover weighs 185 pounds. The elevator can carry at most 2000 pounds. Write an inequality that says that the mover will not overload the elevator on a particular ride.

1. Solve your inequality and explain what the solution means.
2. If the mover asked, "How many boxes can I load on this elevator at a time?," what would you tell them?

Answer 1

The mover can load at most 37 boxes onto the elevator at a time, in order to not overload it.

Step-by-step explanation:

To write an inequality that says the mover will not overload the elevator, we can let x represent the number of boxes the mover loads onto the elevator. Each box weighs 48 pounds. The mover's weight is 185 pounds. The elevator can carry at most 2000 pounds. So, the inequality would be:

x * 48 + 185 ≤ 2000

To solve this inequality, we can subtract 185 from both sides:

x * 48 ≤ 1815

Then, divide both sides by 48:

x ≤ 37.81

The solution to the inequality is x ≤ 37.81. This means the mover can load at most 37 boxes onto the elevator at a time, in order to not overload it.