Question 506566
Professor Haber’s wife is 6 years younger than her husband.
 One day after working on a mathematical formula, he remarked to her, “did you know, June that we’ve been married 22 years, and since our marriage our combined ages have exactly doubled?”
How old were they when they were married?
:
Let h = Prof H's age
let w = his wife's age
:
write an equation for each statement':
"Professor Haber’s wife is 6 years younger than her husband."
w = h - 6
:
"we’ve been married 22 years, and since our marriage our combined ages have exactly doubled?”
2[(w-22)+(h-22)] = (w + h)
2(w+h-44) = w + h
2w + 2h - 88 = w + h
2w - w + 2h - h = 88
w + h = 88
Replace w with (h-6)
h - 6 + h = 88
2h = 88 + 6
2h = 94
h = {{{94/2}}}
h = 47 yrs old is Prof H's age
then
47 - 6 = 41 yrs old is wife's age
then
47 - 22 = 25 yrs old when prof married
and
41 - 22 = 19 yrs when wife married
;
:
See if that works
2(25+19) = 44 twice their sum at marriage
47 + 41 = 88 present sum of their ages