Geometry midpoint

Question

John wants to center a canvas which is 8 ft wide on his living room wall which is 17 ft wide. Where on the wall should John mark the location of nails if the
canvas requires nails every 1/5 of its length excluding the edges?

Answer 1

I am considering all the dimensions along horizontal direction.

wall has horizontal length on which canvas is supposed to be mounted .As the nail should also arranged along the horizontal direction to hold the canvas excluding the edges of the canvas at adistance 1/5 th of its total width.  first draw a figure to understand the problem. draw a wall ,then in its middle draw the canvas and now divide its top edge into 5 equal parts to get the position of nails and each part will be of    8*(1/5) ft =1.6 ft   long .If you exclude the edges of the canvas you will notice that you will need to find the position of 4 nails to hang that canvas.

 

As canvas is in the middle of wall , distance on either side of the wall left = (17 - 8)/2 =9/2 =4.5 ft

 

now the position of nails from one end of the wall will be

 1st nail :4.5+1.6 = 6.1 ft

2nd nail :6.1+ 1.6 = 7.6 ft

3rd nail : 7.6 +1.6 = 9.2 ft

4th nail : 9.2 +1.6 = 10.8 ft