We are going to fence in a rectangular field and we know that for some reason we want the field to have an enclosed area of 75 ft2. We also know that we want the width of the field to be 3 feet longer than the length of the field. What are the dimensions of the field?
Solution
So, we’ll let x be the length of the field and so we know that will be the width of the field. Now, we also know that area of a rectangle is length times width and so we know that,
Now, this is a quadratic equation so let’s first write it in standard form.
Using the quadratic formula gives,
Now, at this point, we’ve got to deal with the fact that there are two solutions here and we only want a single answer. So, let’s convert to decimals and see what the solutions actually are.
So, we have one positive and one negative. From the stand point of needing the dimensions of a field the negative solution doesn’t make any sense so we will ignore it.
Therefore, the length of the field is 7.2892 feet. The width is 3 feet longer than this and so is 10.2892 feet.
Notice that the width is almost the second solution to the quadratic equation. The only difference is the minus sign. Do NOT expect this to always happen. In this case this is more of a function of the problem. For a more complicated set up this will NOT happen.