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mathman: A human cannonball is shot out of a cannon and lands on a trampoline. The trampoline has a border of padding around it. The dimensions of the inner part are 4m by 6m. What is the width of the padding, if the area of the padding is equal to the area of the landing area?
This question is stumping me. Help!?
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hi Mathman,
I'll assume everything is rectangular and the padding is equally wide on each of the sides.
Draw your diagram first,
It will be one 4 by 6 rectangle inside the larger rectangle.
Let the width of the padding be x metres.
Set up an equation for the area of the padding, it will be equal to 24
Simplify and solve. It will be a quadratic equation (but not a hard one). Have you done quadratic equations at school yet?
Since it is a quadratic, there will be 2 answers but only one of them will make any sense.
You have a go and get back to me. If you get stuck I will help you.
+118653 
