To solve this problem, we'll start by first converting the words into two mathematical equations.
1. One number is 3 less than twice another. Let's define our two numbers, let x be our first number and y be our second number. So, we can write this statement as an equation: y = 2x - 3.
2. Their sum is 39. This statement translates to the equation: x + y = 39.
Now we have a system of two equations that we can solve together.
First, let's substitute y from our first equation (y = 2x - 3) into our second equation (x + y = 39) to find the value for x.
The equation becomes: x + 2x - 3 = 39.
Simplifying that, we get: 3x - 3 = 39 and then 3x = 42, which leads to x = 14.
Now that we have the value for x, we substitute x = 14 into the first equation (y = 2x - 3) to find the value for y.
This becomes: y = 2*14 - 3, which simplifies to y = 25.
So, the two numbers are 14 and 25.