"Published in Newark, California, USA"
Prospero bought a rectangular lot in Quezon City. If he needed 78 meters of chicken wire to fence the four sides inclosing 368 square meters of land, what are the dimensions of the lot?
Solution:
To illustrate the problem, it is better to draw the figure as follows
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| Photo by Math Principles in Everyday Life |
Let x = be the length of the rectangular lot
y = be the width of the rectangular lot
If the word statement says "If he needed 78 meters of chicken wire to fence the four side...", then the working equation is
If the word statement says "...to fence the four sides inclosing 368 square meters of land...", then the working equation is
But
Hence, the above equation becomes
By using quadratic formula, the value of x is
If you consider the positive sign, the value of x is
and the value of y is
If you consider the negative sign, the value of x is
and the value of y is
Therefore, the dimensions of the rectangular lot are 23 m by 16 m.