rendition3 wrote:
Brent, could you show how this would work with plugging in numbers?
I started with N = 3
3,000,000 = 1/3 * 9
All I end up with is 3,000,000 / 3. I'm struggling to understand where I went wrong in plugging in numbers.
Thank you
We can't solve this question by plugging in numbers, since there's only
one number that satisfies the given information.
This means we would have to keep testing numbers until we get the one number that satisfies all of the given information.
Let me first show you why the answer must be 0.003 (and then we'll take a look at your approach)
If we move the decimal place 6 places to the right we get:
3000Since 0.003 = 3/1000, the reciprocal of 0.003 is
1000/3Notice that
3000 is 9 times the reciprocal,
1000/3That is, (9)(
1000/3) =
3000So, the correct answer must be n = 0.003
If we start testing numbers (as you have done), we'll find that all numbers (other than 0.003) won't satisfy the given information.
For example, if n = 3, then we get
3,000,000 when we move the decimal point six spaces to the right
The reciprocal of 3 is
1/3Since
3,000,000 does NOT equal (9)(
1/3), we can be certain the answer is NOT n = 3
Does that help?