SOLUTION: robert has 50 coins, all in nickels and dimes, amounting to $3.50. how many nickels does he have?

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Question 1041472: robert has 50 coins, all in nickels and dimes, amounting to $3.50. how many nickels does he have?

Answer by ikleyn(52781) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
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robert has 50 coins, all in nickels and dimes, amounting to $3.50. how many nickels does he have?
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Similar problems were solved so many times, that I'd like to offer you a non-traditional solution.

Let us suppose for a moment that all  50  coins are  dimes. 

Then their value is  50*10 = 500 cents = $5.  It is more than  $3.50 exactly in   $1.50 = 150 cents. 

It is clear that the difference is due to presence of  5-cent nickels that we intently counted as 10-cent dimes.

It is also clear that the number of these  5-cent coins is  150%2F%2810-5%29 = 150%2F5 = 30  to compensate the difference. 

So, the answer is:  there are  30  of  5-cent nickels and  50-30 = 20  of  10-cent dimes.

Answer. There are 30 nickels and 20 dimes.

For more traditional solutions see the lessons
    - Coin problems
    - More Coin problems
    - Kevin and Randy Muise have a jar containing coins
    - Typical coin problems from the archive
in this site.