Answer:
The first friend has 40 coins.
Explanation:
The statement says that the two friend have a total of 60 coins, which can be expressed as:
x+y=60 (1), where:
x is the first friend
y is the second friend
Also, the statement says that if the first friend gives 1/4 of his coins to the second friend, they will have an equal number of coins which means that if you subtract 1/4 of the coins the first friend has this would be equal to the number of coins the second friend has now, which is:
x-1/4x=y+1/4x
x-1/4x-1/4x=y
y=x-2/4x
y=x-1/2x (2)
Next, you have replace (2) in (1) and solve for x:
x+x-1/2x=60
2x-1/2x=60
3/2x=60
x=60/(3/2)
x=(60*2)/(1*3)
x=120/3
x=40
Finally, you can replace the value of x in (2) in order to find the value of y:
y=40-1/2(40)
y=40-(20)
y=20
According to this, the answer is that the first friend has 40 coins.