One side of a square is 5n inches long. Another side is n + 16 inches long. Write an equation by setting these equal and solving for n. How long is a side of the square? One point for finding n and one point for finding the length of the side.
So set 5n equal to n+16, and solve.
To set up the equation, we can start by saying that one side of the square is 5n inches long and the other side is n + 16 inches long.
So, we have the equation:
5n = n + 16
To solve for n, we need to isolate the variable. Let's simplify the equation step by step:
5n - n = 16
Simplifying the left side:
4n = 16
Next, we can divide both sides of the equation by 4 to solve for n:
4n/4 = 16/4
Simplifying:
n = 4
So, we've found that n is equal to 4.
To find the length of a side of the square, we substitute the value of n back into either side length given in the problem. Let's use the first side length:
Side length = 5n
Substituting n = 4:
Side length = 5 * 4
Side length = 20
Therefore, a side of the square is 20 inches long.