Question

Two friends have a total of 60 coins. If the first fried gives 1/4 of his coins to the second friend, they will have an equal number of coins. How many coins does the first friend have at the beginning?

Answer 1

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.