SOLUTION: Do you think you could help me with this? Bricks are delivered to a work site and stacked in rows and columns, forming a rectangular prism. The length of the prism is 1 foot gre

Question 712235: Do you think you could help me with this?
Bricks are delivered to a work site and stacked in rows and columns, forming a rectangular prism. The length of the prism is 1 foot greater than its width, and its height is 2 feet less than its width. Show how to find the dimensions of the prism formed by the bricks, given that its volume is 40 cubic feet.
Answer by josgarithmetic(39617) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
The unknown being referenced is the width.

Let w be width
Length is w+1
Height is w-2

Some steps,

w(w^2-w-2)-40=0

Solving that is faster if you know synthetic division. You would use the idea of the Rational Roots Theorem to find values for w to satisfy the cubic equation. I'd suggest first working with +/-4, +/-5, +/-8, +/-10. When you get just one first root, the next two will be easy.

Some further work:
Good News! I tried some long divisions and found +5 or -5 are not roots, but that +4 is a root. One of the binomials is (w-4). The quotient from this was . So this means your polynomial equation is
, so the quadratic part should be much easier to manage.
NOTE: The discriminant for that quadratic is -31, so the solution will contain an imaginary part. The only reasonable value for w is 4.
RELATED QUESTIONS
3. Bricks are delivered to a work site and stacked in rows and columns, forming a... (answered by CubeyThePenguin)

Bricks are delivered to a work site and stacked in rows and columns, forming a... (answered by richwmiller)

3. Bricks are delivered to a work site and stacked in rows and columns, forming a... (answered by ikleyn)

3. Bricks are delivered to a work site and stacked in rows and columns, forming a... (answered by CubeyThePenguin)

I am having a hard time remembering this stuff from high school and could really use some (answered by nerdybill)

Desertec is a project to supply 15% of Europe's electric power from concentrating solar... (answered by Boreal)

If a checker board had 8 rows and 8 columns how many squares are there? If you doubled... (answered by Alan3354)

i do not understand this problem at all and i dont understand what im suppose to do on... (answered by richwmiller,solver91311)

Can you please help me with this quadratic word problem: A designer attempts to arrange... (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com)