Question

The sum of the heights of two brothers is 10 feet, 4 inches. The difference betweentheir heights is 10 inches. How tall is the shorter brother? (12 inches = 1 foot;Remember to convert into inches first and then into feet at the end.) Let the heightof the taller brother = x and the height of the shorter brother = y

Answer 1

First we can pass the information we have to inches so:

`10ft\cdot(12)/(1)=120\text{inc}`

So the sum of heigths is 124 inches, so we can write a equation for each condition so:

`\begin{gathered} A+B=124 \\ A-B=10 \end{gathered}`

Where A is the height of the big brother and B is the height of the small brother so we can solve bout equation for A so:

`\begin{gathered} 1\to A=124-B \\ 2\to A=10+B \end{gathered}`

Now we can made the equation equal so:

`\begin{gathered} 10+B=124-B \\ 2B=124-10 \\ B=(114)/(2) \\ B=57 \end{gathered}`

So the small brother is 57 inches