Question 305465
<font face="Garamond" size="+2">


I can only help in a very general sense because you didn't bother to provide the entire problem.  Your problem needs to have some sort of statement about how many coins Irving has.  It could be that he has some specific number of coins or it might be that he has some number more dimes than nickels -- or some other relationship that would allow you to write a second equation.


Let's say that you know you have *[tex \Large x] coins altogether.


Let *[tex \Large d] represent the number of dimes Irving has, and let *[tex \Large n] represent the number of nickels.  Hence:


*[tex \LARGE \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ d\ +\ n\ =\ x]


Since dimes are worth 10 cents each and nickels are worth 5 cents each and you can say that Irving's $2.50 is actually 250 cents, we can write:


*[tex \LARGE \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 10d\ +\ 5n\ =\ 250]


Rearranging the first equation we get:


*[tex \LARGE \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ n\ =\ x\ -\ d]


And substituting:


*[tex \LARGE \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 10d\ +\ 5x\ -\ 5d\ =\ 250]


which, had you taken the trouble to provide a value for *[tex \Large x], we could easily solve for *[tex \Large d]


John
*[tex \LARGE e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0]
</font>