Harvey plans to use 5 ft of shelving for four shelves whose lengths are to be a series of consecutive even numbers. How many inches long should each shelf be?

Question

Gdeinward · Answer

Any ideas?

Ferredoxin4 · Answer

You will need to make an equation here.

Let $$x_{n}$$ represent shelves, where n=shelve number.

You have a total of 5 ft. Each length must be consecutive even numbers. So  $$x_{n}$$ would be 2 greater than  $$x_{n-1}$$

So for 5, it would be

$$(x_{1})+(x_{1}+2)+(x_{1}+4)+(x_{1}+6)+(x_{1}+8)=5 feet$$

So you can solve for x and convert to inches

Ferredoxin4 · Answer

correction: for the equation convert 5 feet to inches first because the series is asking in inches to begin with.