Eight times the reciprocal of a number equals 2 times the reciprocal of 4. What is the number?

Question

how to solve geometry word problems

Answer 1

Eight times the reciprocal of a number equals 2 times the reciprocal of 4. What is the number?

8×1/r=8/r=2×1/4=2/4=1/2

8/r=1/2

1/r=1/16

r=16

Answer 2

To begin this problem, you have to know what the reciprocal of a number means. The reciprocal of a number means one over said number. So the reciprocal of 4 would be 1/4 or .25.

 

So 2*.25=.5

 

From the beginning portion of the word problem, we know that 8*(1/x) equals .5.

 

Divide both sides by 8 and you get (1/x)=.0625 which is 1/16. So x equals 16.

 

To make sure we are right, we can plug x back into the equation.

 

8*(1/16)=2*(1/4)

.5=.5 So we are correct.