Aswin has bananas and pears in the ratio 3:8. After he eats 12 pears (and no bananas), there are now twice as many pears as bananas. How many bananas does he have?
To solve this problem, we can set up a proportion. Let's say Aswin initially has 3x bananas and 8x pears. Then, after eating 12 pears, he will have 8x - 12 pears.
According to the problem, there are now twice as many pears as bananas. So we can set up the following proportion:
(8x - 12) / (3x) = 2/1
To solve this proportion, we can cross multiply and solve for x:
2*(3x) = 1*(8x - 12)
6x = 8x - 12
12 = 8x - 6x
12 = 2x
x = 6
Now that we have the value of x, we can substitute it back into the expression for bananas to find the answer:
Number of bananas = 3x = 3 * 6 = 18
Therefore, Aswin has 18 bananas.