Question 100259: Stan took his collection of nickels and dimes to deposit in the bank. He has fewer nickels than he does dimes. His total deposit is 38.90 How many nickels and dimes did she deposit?
Answer by bucky(2189)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Something appears to be wrong with this problem because as written there are many solutions.
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You have only three restrictions. First, the coins are to consist of only nickels and dimes.
Second, the total amount must be $38.90. And third, the number of dimes must be more than the
number of nickels.
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Let me propose some answers that meet these limitations. I am assuming that there must be
at least some nickels.
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How about 388 dimes and 2 nickels? That means there is $38.80 from dimes and $0.10 from nickels
for a total of $38.90.
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Then how about decreasing the number of dimes by 1 and increasing the number of nickels by 2?
This would mean 387 dimes and 4 nickels for $38.70 in dimes and $0.20 in nickels.
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Do the same thing again to get 386 dimes and 6 nickels ($38.60 in dimes and $0.30 in
nickels).
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You can continue to do this all the way down to 260 dimes and 258 nickels ($26.00 in dimes
and $12.90 in nickels). You can't go beyond that because if you decrease the number of
dimes by 1 to 259 dimes, the number of nickels must be increased by 2 to 260, and at this
point the number of nickels in no longer less than the number of dimes.
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As long as you keep the number of dimes (call that D) in the spectrum from 260 to 388
inclusive, the number of nickels needed to make up the missing amount to get to $38.90 will
be less than the number of dimes.
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Hope this helps you to understand the problem and why there is not a single answer to it.
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