Question

What is this prob. asking me to do? questrion one says: Write a system of two equations using x and y in each for the following.
The sum of two numbers is 170 and their difference is 26.

Question two says:The sum of two numbers is 170 and their difference is 26. Find the two numbers. Show how to solve this using any method.

do they want the same thing?

Answer 1

Well, for the first one, you have to write the equations. For the second, you have to actually solve them

Answer 2

oh thanks that makes sense thanks:)

Answer 3

Sure :-)

Answer 4

question 3 says The sum of two numbers is 170 and their difference is 26. Find the two numbers. Write the solution as an ordered pair.

that looks the same as number two

Answer 5

Yes. It does indeed. Strange. The only new thing here is that they have asked for an ordered pair. That means that if the answers are (for example): x = 2 and y = 3. The answer is (2,3). BUT NOT (3,2) -- ordered pair means the answers have to be given in the order they were asked for in the question.

Answer 6

and ordered pairs look like coordinates :-) don't confuse the two, but if you are interested to know why this similarity exists, I can oblige

Answer 7

wait i thought that ordered pairs were coordinates?

Answer 8

Not exactly. An ordered pair means that we have two values which go hand in hand. In other words, for example in a function : y = x + 1, when x is 1, y is 2.
Order is important because while (1,2) is therefore correct, (2,1) is NOT.
In other words, coordinates are ordered pairs, but ordered pairs are not necessarily coordinates. (they are a more general term for any two numbers in which order is important).

Answer 9

ok i get it thank you

Answer 10

glad to help, especially since you catch on so quickly, even though you probably won't have to make the distinction in your course - just another generally useless but wonderful fact.