Question

The lengths of the sides of a triangle form three consecutive odd numbers. The perimeter is 21 centimeters. What is the length of the longest side?

Answer 1

Consecutive odd numbers differ by 2.
n + (n + 2) + (n + 4) = 21
n + n + 2 + n + 4 = 21
3n+6=21
3n=21-6=15
n=5
5, 5+2=7, 5+4=9
5+7+9=21

Answer 2

Small thing (very small).

It's a slicker operation if you call them (n-2) , n, (n+2)

I mean, obviously it makes no difference, but I prefer it :D

Answer 3

Yes, the twos cancel.
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Did you review my solution to your "fun" problem the other day?

Answer 4

no, sorry :( I'll try and find that thread again

Answer 5

A real shame :( You (I think) misread the fractions 1/3 1/5 1/7 etc as 13, 15, 17. I think that is the cause of the difference. I assume yours are correct to the (slightly different) problem though.

Answer 6

I will redo it with your fractions.
Thanks for responding.

Answer 7

I look forward to it

Answer 8

After my last post above, I remember taking a screen capture of the problems that you posted on this math site so that I would not make any errors in the equations to be solved. Refer to the attachment, a screen capture.

I will check the equations carefully again.

Answer 9

Oh, weird, your computer doesn't render LaTeX on this site :/

Answer 10

What do you see below?
\[\frac{4}{5} \] ? Because that renders as a fraction (4/5), do you see 45?

Answer 11

I see 45 on the screen. Unable today to enter x^2 and have complained about it.
x^2 is present as 2x in their window. I'll try another computer or use a virtuaized version of Ubuntu Linux.

Answer 12

:( Sorry for any confusion. For the record the full question is in this image: one jpeg and one tif