My friend Charles works in a post office and he sells stamps. One day a man walked in and slamming seventy five rupees on the counter requested,

"Please give me some 2 rupees stamps, six times as many one rupee stamps, and for the rest of the amount make up some 5 rupee stamps."

Charles thought for a few moments and finally she handed over the exact fulfilment of the order to the man.

How did he do it and how many stamps of each type did he give to the man ?

Let assume that "a" is a quantity of 2 rupee stamps. We can write equation: 2a+6a+5b=75 where b is a quantity of 5 rupee stamps. 8a+5b=75. Since 8a must be even 8 it means 5b=35. b=7. 8a=40. a=5. It means that he bought 7 stamps per 5 rupee, 5 stamps per 2 rupee and 30 stamps per one rupee.

Posted by olga on 2003-03-08 12:26:43