SOLUTION: A woman is 6 times older than her child.The product of their ages 7 years ago was 180.Find their present age

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Question 941844: A woman is 6 times older than her child.The product of their ages 7 years ago was 180.Find their present age
Answer by Alan3354(69443) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
A woman is 6 times older than her child.The product of their ages 7 years ago was 180.Find their present age
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w = woman's age now
c = child's age now
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w = 7c
(w - 7)*(c - 7) = 180
(7c - 7)*(c - 7) = 180
7c%5E2+-+56c+%2B+49+=+180
7c%5E2+-+56c+-+131+=+0
Solved by pluggable solver: SOLVE quadratic equation (work shown, graph etc)
Quadratic equation ax%5E2%2Bbx%2Bc=0 (in our case 7x%5E2%2B-56x%2B-131+=+0) has the following solutons:

x%5B12%5D+=+%28b%2B-sqrt%28+b%5E2-4ac+%29%29%2F2%5Ca

For these solutions to exist, the discriminant b%5E2-4ac should not be a negative number.

First, we need to compute the discriminant b%5E2-4ac: b%5E2-4ac=%28-56%29%5E2-4%2A7%2A-131=6804.

Discriminant d=6804 is greater than zero. That means that there are two solutions: +x%5B12%5D+=+%28--56%2B-sqrt%28+6804+%29%29%2F2%5Ca.

x%5B1%5D+=+%28-%28-56%29%2Bsqrt%28+6804+%29%29%2F2%5C7+=+9.89188303637179
x%5B2%5D+=+%28-%28-56%29-sqrt%28+6804+%29%29%2F2%5C7+=+-1.89188303637179

Quadratic expression 7x%5E2%2B-56x%2B-131 can be factored:
7x%5E2%2B-56x%2B-131+=+%28x-9.89188303637179%29%2A%28x--1.89188303637179%29
Again, the answer is: 9.89188303637179, -1.89188303637179. Here's your graph:
graph%28+500%2C+500%2C+-10%2C+10%2C+-20%2C+20%2C+7%2Ax%5E2%2B-56%2Ax%2B-131+%29

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c = 9.892 years
w = 69.244 years
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It's not an integral solution, probably because the moron that wrote the problem thinks "6 times older" is the same as 6 times as old.
6 times older = 7 times as old.
1 time older = 2x, not the same age.