Five less than the product of -3 and a number is -2.
-3x - 5 = -2
To solve this problem, let's call the number "x".
The product of -3 and the number can be written as -3x.
Now we are given that "Five less than the product of -3 and a number is -2", which can be translated into the equation:
-3x - 5 = -2
To solve for x, we can start by adding 5 to both sides of the equation:
-3x - 5 + 5 = -2 + 5
This simplifies to:
-3x = 3
Finally, we can isolate x by dividing both sides of the equation by -3:
(-3x)/-3 = 3/-3
This results in:
x = -1
Hence, the number is -1.
To solve this problem, let's break it down step by step.
The first step is to let n stand for the number we want to find.
The problem states that "Five less than the product of -3 and a number is -2." Mathematically, we can write this as:
-3n - 5 = -2
To solve for n, we need to isolate it on one side of the equation. Let's start by adding 5 to both sides of the equation:
-3n - 5 + 5 = -2 + 5
This simplifies to:
-3n = 3
Next, we want to get n by itself, so we divide both sides of the equation by -3:
(-3n) / -3 = 3 / -3
This gives us:
n = -1
Therefore, the number we are looking for is -1.