Question

From a tract of land, a developer plans to fence a rectangular region and then divide it into two identical rectangular lots by putting a fence down the middle. Suppose that the fence for the outside boundary costs 7 per foot and the fence for the middle costs 2 per foot. If each lot contains 3400 square feet, find the dimensions of each lot that yield the minimum cost for the fence. please help

Answer 1

Let's see. You have 2 x 3400 = 6800 square feet to divide in half.
I think we need to know the outer dimensions of this, so we can decide whether to divide it by cutting lengthwise or width-wise.
Since the outside boundary seems fixed, the choice of the shortest dividing fence would be least costly, so cut it width-wise.