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 1.20 + 35 < 50, where b equals the number of books, to help figure this out. Solve his inequality. Use the letter o as your variable and write your b term first. >, <, ≥, or ≤
It looks like there's a slight mistake in the inequality that Youssef wrote. Instead of 1.20 + 35 < 50, it should be 1.2o + 35 < 50, where o represents the number of books.
Let's correct the inequality and solve for o:
1.2o + 35 < 50
Now we want to isolate o, so we subtract 35 from both sides:
1.2o + 35 - 35 < 50 - 35
1.2o < 15
Finally, we divide by 1.2 on both sides to solve for o:
o < 15 / 1.2
o < 12.5
Since Youssef cannot bring a fraction of a book, he can bring a maximum of 12 books without exceeding the 50-pound weight limit for his suitcase.