SOLUTION: John has a swimming pool that is 30 feet by 40 feet. He wants to plant a strip of grass of uniform width around the pool. He has enough seed to cover 144 square feet. How wide shou

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Question 915688: John has a swimming pool that is 30 feet by 40 feet. He wants to plant a strip of grass of uniform width around the pool. He has enough seed to cover 144 square feet. How wide should the strip be?
Found 2 solutions by mananth, josgarithmetic:
Answer by mananth(16946) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Let the width be x
..
Length of rectangle 40 feet
width of rectangle 30 feet

Area = 1200 Ft^2
Area of plot 144 Ft^2
length of rectangle & plot 40 + 2 x
width of rectangle & plot 30 + 2 x

( 40 + 2 x ) ( 30 + 2 x ) + -1,200 = 144

1,200 + 80 x + 60 x + 4 X^2 + -1,200 = 144
4X^2 + 140 x + -144 = 0
/4
x^2+35x-36=0
x^2+36x-x-36=0
x(x+36)-1(x+36)=0
(x+36)(x-1)=0
x=1
width = 1 foot

Answer by josgarithmetic(39617) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Let w be the uniform width of the grass strip.

Pool area,
Combined area pool and grass strip,
Grass strip area,