You can put this solution on YOUR website! Given:
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P = 2L + 2W
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This is to be solved for L
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To do this, you must first get the term containing L separated on one side of the equation and
everything else on the other side of the equation. Notice that on the right side of the
given equation that the term containing L is not by itself. There is also a term that contains
the variable W. We need to get rid of that term with the W. You can do this by subtracting
2W from the right side. But whenever you do something such as this to one side of the equation
you must also do the same thing to the other side of the equation to keep the equation in
balance.
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So in this problem if we subtract 2W from the right side, we must also subtract 2W from the
left side. By subtracting 2W from the right side, we make the 2W disappear from the right
side. And by subtracting 2W from the left side, we make a -2W appear on the left side. Therefore,
the subtraction of 2W from both sides results in the given equation becoming:
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P - 2W = 2L
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This tells us what two times L equals ... it equals P - 2W. Since we need to know what
L is we can do that by dividing the right side by 2. That will make the right side become
L. But since we divide the right side by 2 we also must divide the entire left side (all
terms) by 2. This leads to the answer:
.
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If you prefer, you can transpose this equation ... put the left side on the right side
and put the right side on the left side ... and you can do this without any mathematical
changes. This puts the equation into a little more "standard" form with the variable that
you have solved for on the left side, and all the other variables on the right side. In
this form the answer is:
.
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Hope this helps you to get the basic idea of how to solve an equation for one of the variables
in terms of the other variables.
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