Derek had a square box lid and 10 marbles. He placed all 10 marbles along the inside walls of the lid and had an equal number of marbles on each of the four sides. How many marbles were on each side?
10.
2.5
To find out how many marbles were on each side, we first need to determine the total number of marbles on all four sides.
Since there is an equal number of marbles on each side, we can divide the total number of marbles by 4 to find out how many marbles are on each side.
Let's take a step-by-step approach to solve this:
1. Derek had a square box lid, which means all four sides of the lid are of equal length.
2. Let's assume that there were "x" marbles on each side of the lid.
3. Since there are four sides, the total number of marbles is equal to "4x".
According to the problem, "10 marbles" were placed along the inside walls of the lid, resulting in an equal number of marbles on each side.
So, we can write the equation: 4x = 10.
To solve for "x" (the number of marbles on each side), divide both sides of the equation by 4:
4x/4 = 10/4.
This simplifies to:
x = 10/4 = 2.5.
However, since we are looking for a whole number of marbles, we cannot have half a marble. Therefore, it is not possible to have an equal number of marbles on each side with 10 marbles.