Can you design an equation with two unknowns and still find the value of one?

(In reply to Anything better? by levik)

I'm not sure we can do substantially better. The only way we can completely solve a single equation for one of two independant variables, is if the second proves to be irrelevant, which in turn means that all terms with the secon variable must either be multiplied by zero, or cancel one another out.

However, just because y must be multiplied by zero in the equation doesn't mean that x must be that zero. if in your original eqation we replaced the "x" with "(x - 1), then the "X-factor" must still be zero, but x itself would equal 1

Posted by TomM on 2002-07-04 16:21:01