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Weight-loss Program Poser (Posted on 2023-06-28) Difficulty: 3 of 5
  1. Judy, Scarlett, Phoebe, and Amanda all went through a weight loss diet program.
  2. Their combined weight loss after the program was equal to Scarlett's weight before the program.
  3. Judy's weight before the program was twice Phoebe's weight after the program.
  4. The combined weight of Scarlett, Phoebe and Amanda before the program was four times Phoebe's weight after the program.
  5. The combined weight of Judy and Scarlett before the program was thrice Scarlett's weight after the program.
  6. Phoebe and Amanda both lost the same amount of pounds.
  7. Twice Scarlett's weight loss was equal to thrice Amanda's weight loss.
  8. Scarlett lost 20 pounds more than Phoebe.
  9. The combined weight loss of Judy and Scarlett is equal to 140 pounds.

Determine the weights of Judy, Scarlett, Phoebe, and Amanda before and after the weight-loss program.

See The Solution Submitted by K Sengupta    
Rating: 5.0000 (1 votes)

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Solution Spreadsheet matrix with instructions how to Comment 3 of 3 |
J and j were Judy's weight before and after, etc for the others.

Translating statements 2 through 9 into equations
S = (J+S+P+A) - (j+s+p+a)
J = 2p
S+P+A = 4p
J+S = 3s
P-p = A-a
2(S-s) = 3(A-a)
(S-s)=  (P-p) + 20 
(J-j) + (S-s) = 140

Spreadsheet Matrix using MINVERSE() and MMULT():
The leftmost column represents the statement number.

J S P A j s p a integer
2 1 0 1 1 -1 -1 -1 -1 0
3 1 0 0 0 0 0 -2 0 0
4 0 1 1 1 0 0 -4 0 0
5 1 1 0 0 0 -3 0 0 0
6 0 0 1 -1 0 0 -1 1 0
7 0 2 0 -3 0 -2 0 3 0
8 0 1 -1 0 0 -1 1 0 20
9 1 1 0 0 -1 -1 0 0 140
2 -2 0 0 1 1 -1 -1 2 260
3 -1 0 0 0 5 -2 4 1 220
4 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 3.5 -1.5 1.5 1 170
5 -2 -1.5 1 1.5 -6.5 1.5 -7.5 2 130
6 -2 0 0 1 4 -2 2 1 180
7 -1 0 0 0 2 -1 1 1 160
8 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 0.5 -0.5 -0.5 1 130
9 -2 -1.5 1 1.5 -8.5 2.5 -9.5 2 90

From 260, Judy lost 80 --------> 180
From 220, Scarlett lost 60 ----> 160
From 170, Phoebe lost 40    ---> 130
From 130, Amanda lost 40    --->  90

Procedure for solving simultaneous equations using spreadsheet matrix functions.
I was using LibreOffice Calc, but I think it is the same for Excel.
The first 8x8 matrix is entered by hand:  coefficients for the LHS of each equation.
The 1x8 column labelled "integer" is the RHS of each equation.
One then highlights an 8x8 area, enter "=MINVERSE(" select the first 8x8 matrix  ")"
then hit Ctrl-Alt-Return rather than just Return  
This produces the inverse of the first matrix.

Then highlight a 1x8 area; 8 rows, one column; a vertical array.
Type = "MMULT(" Select inverse matrix  "," select the 1x8 column labelled 'integer'  ")"
type Ctrl-Alt-Return
The solution magically appears; or an error.
Usually an error.

Edited on June 28, 2023, 8:09 pm
  Posted by Larry on 2023-06-28 20:07:45

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