deshawn and Luke had an equal number of stickers. After deshawn used 26 stickers and Luke lost 38 stickers. deshawn had twice as many stickers as Luke. how many stickers did each of them have in the beginning ?

let x = initial number of stickers

then set up the equation:
x-26 = 2(x-38)
x - 26 = 2x - 76
-x = -76 + 26
-x = -50
x = 50 stickers

hope this helps~ :)

Let's solve this step-by-step.

Let's say the number of stickers both DeShawn and Luke had initially is x.

According to the problem:
DeShawn used 26 stickers, so now he has x - 26 stickers.
Luke lost 38 stickers, so now he has x - 38 stickers.

It is also mentioned that DeShawn had twice as many stickers as Luke. So, we can write the equation:
x - 26 = 2(x - 38)

Now let's solve this equation:

x - 26 = 2x - 76 // Distributing 2 on (x - 38)
x - 2x = -76 + 26 // Moving x terms to one side and the constant terms to the other side
-x = -50
x = 50

So, initially, both DeShawn and Luke had 50 stickers each.

To find out how many stickers each of them had in the beginning, let's break down the given information step by step.

Let's assume that the number of stickers both Deshawn and Luke had in the beginning is 'x'.

1. Deshawn used 26 stickers, so his new total is 'x - 26'.
2. Luke lost 38 stickers, so his new total is 'x - 38'.

According to the problem, Deshawn had twice as many stickers as Luke after the changes. So we can express this mathematically as:

(x - 26) = 2(x - 38)

Now, let's solve this equation to find 'x':

x - 26 = 2x - 76 (Distribute '2' into the parentheses)
x - 2x = -76 + 26 (Move '2x' to the left side and '26' to the right side)
-x = -50 (Combine like terms)
x = 50 (Multiply both sides by -1)

So, the original number of stickers both Deshawn and Luke had in the beginning is 50 each.