I’m sure you have heard of this math problem. No matter how many times someone explained this to me I still feel confused. Can someone explain in the simplest way possible?
In: Mathematics
“A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat is $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?”
Your immediate thought may be that it’s $0.10. OK, let’s try that!
* Say that the ball is $0.10.
* Then the bat is $1.10 ($1 more than the ball).
* Now both of them combined would be $1.20.
Hrmm, that didn’t work. Why not? Well, the problem kinda “tricked” you – as soon as you heard “$1.10” and “$1 more”, you immediately jumped to “$0.10″…but that obviously wasn’t correct.
So how do you actually solve it?
* Ball = X
* Bat = Ball + $1
* Which means that Bat = X + $1
* Ball + Bat = $1.10
* Which means that X + X + $1 = $1.10
OK, now we can solve it:
* X + X + $1 = $1.10
* 2X = $0.10
* X = $0.05
* Which means that X + $1 = $1.05
…so the ball was $0.05, and the bat was $1.05.
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