At a local river, there were 48 alligators laying on the riverbank. If 5/6 of the alligators were asleep, how many were not asleep?
40
The answer is 40.
To find out how many alligators were not asleep, we first need to determine what fraction of the alligators were asleep.
Given that 5/6 of the alligators were asleep, we can calculate the fraction of alligators that were not asleep by subtracting this fraction from 1 (since the sum of the fractions of asleep and not asleep should equal 1).
Let's calculate that:
Fraction of alligators asleep = 5/6
Fraction of alligators not asleep = 1 - 5/6
Now, let's simplify the fraction:
1 - 5/6 = 6/6 - 5/6 = 1/6
Therefore, 1/6 of the alligators were not asleep.
To find the actual count of alligators not asleep, we multiply the fraction by the total number of alligators:
Total alligators = 48
Alligators not asleep = (1/6) * 48
Alligators not asleep = 48/6
Alligators not asleep = 8
Hence, there were 8 alligators not asleep.