Youssef is taking a trip on an airplane. He knows that to avoid extra fees his suitcase must weigh under 50 pounds. The suitcase with his clothes weighs 35 pounds. He has room, so he decides to pack some books for his trip, too. Each book weighs on average 1.2 pounds.

Question

Youssef is taking a trip on an airplane. He knows that to avoid extra fees his suitcase must weigh under 50 pounds. The suitcase with his clothes weighs 35 pounds. He has room, so he decides to pack some books for his trip, too. Each book weighs on average 1.2 pounds.

How many books could he bring on the trip? He writes the inequality 1.2b + 35 < 50, where b equals the number of books, to help figure this out. Solve his inequality. Use the letter b as your variable and write your b term first.

Answer 1

To solve the inequality for Youssef, let's isolate the variable b:

1.2b + 35 < 50

First, let's subtract 35 from both sides of the inequality to move the constant term to the other side:

1.2b + 35 - 35 < 50 - 35

This simplifies to:

1.2b < 15

Now, to solve for b, we divide both sides of the inequality by the coefficient of b, which is 1.2:

1.2b / 1.2 < 15 / 1.2

This gives us:

b < 12.5

Since Youssef can’t bring a fraction of a book, the number of books must be a whole number. Therefore, the maximum number of whole books he can bring without exceeding the weight limit is 12.