FOUR STEPS:
Amy and three friends launch a new website. Each of the four friends e-mails the web address to three new friends. These new friends forward the web address to three more friends. If no one receives the e-mails more than once, how many people will receive the web address in the second wave of e-mails?
1)Draw a pattern/diagram to model the situation for Amy.
2)How many e-mails are sent in each wave of Amy's diagram?
3)Amy is just one of four friends initiating the first wave of e-mails. Write an expression for the total number of e-mails sent in the 2nd wave.
4)Identify the computation that should be done first to simplify the expression in step-3. Then simplify the expression
THANK YOU!
1) To model the situation for Amy, we can draw a diagram. Start with a circle representing Amy, and connect three other circles to her, representing her three friends. Then, from each of these three friends, draw three more circles to represent the second wave of e-mails.
2) In each wave, each person sends the e-mail to three new friends. So in the first wave, Amy and her three friends will send a total of 4 x 3 = 12 e-mails.
3) Since Amy is just one of four friends initiating the first wave, there are a total of 4 x 12 = 48 e-mails sent in the second wave.
4) To simplify the expression for the total number of e-mails sent in the second wave, we need to perform the computation that should be done first. In this case, we need to multiply the number of friends by the number of e-mails sent in the first wave. So, simplify the expression by doing 4 x 12 = 48.