Okay, so I already know the answer to this because it was given, but I was trying to figure out HoW to actually solve it and show my work in the process, and after about an hour of struggling, I couldn't freaking do it. Needless to say, I feel like a total dumbass. This is an algebra problem given to a 13 year old from Russia, so I blame America's school system (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;P)
Okay, so this is the math problem:
@Auri I know you'll probably solve it in like 10 seconds and make me feel like even more of a dumbass, haha.
But okay, so there are 3 plates in total with apples on them. The first plate has 1/2 of the total number of apples on all 3 plates. If you take away 1/2 of the number of apples that lie on the second plate from the first plate, as well as 1/2 of the number of apples that lie on the third plate also from the first plate, then only 2 apples would be left over on the first plate. How many apples are on each plate?
Like i said, I already know the answer, i just want to see how someone solves the problem using algebra (let's call the plates X, Y, and Z -- how would you solve for X, Y, and Z with the information given in the problem?) I figured out fow to solve for X, but then after that, my dumb ass seems to get confused. So would someone who is better than me at math please show me how they would do this because it's pissing me the hell off that a 13 year old can do algebra better than I can :P Shit...when I was 13, we weren't doing algebra problems this difficult yet. Goes to show why basically all other countries are smarter than us, eh?
Okay, so this is the math problem:
@Auri I know you'll probably solve it in like 10 seconds and make me feel like even more of a dumbass, haha.
But okay, so there are 3 plates in total with apples on them. The first plate has 1/2 of the total number of apples on all 3 plates. If you take away 1/2 of the number of apples that lie on the second plate from the first plate, as well as 1/2 of the number of apples that lie on the third plate also from the first plate, then only 2 apples would be left over on the first plate. How many apples are on each plate?
Like i said, I already know the answer, i just want to see how someone solves the problem using algebra (let's call the plates X, Y, and Z -- how would you solve for X, Y, and Z with the information given in the problem?) I figured out fow to solve for X, but then after that, my dumb ass seems to get confused. So would someone who is better than me at math please show me how they would do this because it's pissing me the hell off that a 13 year old can do algebra better than I can :P Shit...when I was 13, we weren't doing algebra problems this difficult yet. Goes to show why basically all other countries are smarter than us, eh?