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Jamal is five years less than the age of his brother Alex and the product of their ages is 300. How old is Jamal?

User Anton Kim
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Let's start by defining some variables:

Let's call Jamal's age "J".

Let's call Alex's age "A".

From the problem statement, we know that:

J = A - 5 (Jamal is 5 years younger than Alex)

J * A = 300 (the product of their ages is 300)

We can use the first equation to substitute J in the second equation:

(A - 5) * A = 300

Expanding the left-hand side:

A^2 - 5A = 300

Moving all terms to the left-hand side:

A^2 - 5A - 300 = 0

We can solve for A using the quadratic formula:

A = (-(-5) ± sqrt((-5)^2 - 41(-300))) / (2*1)

A = (5 ± sqrt(25 + 1200)) / 2

A = (5 ± sqrt(1225)) / 2

Since A is a positive integer, we take the positive solution:

A = (5 + 35) / 2 = 20

Now we can use the first equation to find J:

J = A - 5 = 20 - 5 = 15

Therefore, Jamal is 15 years old.

User Dwhieb
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