Courtney wanted to share raisins with Norman and Mark. She counted 36 raisins in her box. She said "If we all have the same number of raisins, there are 98 raisins in all." What is wrong with Courtney's statement?
Does 36 * 3 = 98 ??
To understand what's wrong with Courtney's statement, let's analyze the given information:
Courtney has 36 raisins in her box, and she wants to share them equally with Norman and Mark, making sure that everyone has the same number of raisins. Additionally, she claims that if they were to divide the raisins equally, the total number of raisins would be 98.
To verify the accuracy of Courtney's statement, we can set up an equation:
Let's assume x represents the number of raisins each person receives.
According to Courtney's statement, if they all have the same number of raisins, then there would be 98 raisins in total. This can be expressed as:
3x = 98
Since there are three people involved (Courtney, Norman, and Mark) and they each have x raisins, the left side of the equation represents the total number of raisins, which is 3x. The right side of the equation represents the mentioned total of 98 raisins.
Simplifying the equation:
3x = 98
Now, we can solve for x by dividing both sides of the equation by 3:
x = 98/3
However, when we calculate this, we find that x is not a whole number. It is approximately 32.67. This means that if they were to divide the raisins equally, each person would receive around 32.67 raisins, which is not possible as raisins cannot be divided into fractions.
Hence, the problem with Courtney's statement is that there is no whole number, let alone 98, that can be divided equally among three people using the given information.