Anne, Edward, and Isaac are the three editors of the Perplexus Weekly newspaper. This week, Anne spotted 300 errors, Edward spotted 100 errors, and Isaac spotted 200 errors. Altogether, they spotted 404 errors. Assuming that each error is equally easy to spot, about how many errors did they miss?

(In reply to Assuming that ... by Charlie)

404/x = 100/x + 200/x + 300/x - (100*200/x^2 + 200*300/x^2 + 100*300/x^2) + 100*200*300/x^3 when muliplied by x^3 gives 404x^2 = 600x^2 - 110000x+6000000 which is a quadratic equation using a=196, b=110000 and c=6000000, to which one solution is 500, and if x=500, they must have missed 96 errors.

Posted by Gamer on 2006-02-14 23:28:14