Rick has a bowl of just strawberries and grapes with his lunch. There are 5 times as many grapes as strawberries, for a total of 45 grapes in the bowl. How many strawberries are in the bowl?

Answer 1

Let's denote the number of strawberries as $s$ and the number of grapes as $g$.

According to the problem, we know two things:

1. The number of grapes is 5 times the number of strawberries.
2. The total number of grapes is 45.

We can express these relationships with the equations: $$g=5s$$ $$g=45$$

Since both equations involve $g$, we can set them equal to each other: $$5s=45$$

To find $s$, we can divide both sides by 5: $$s=\frac{45}{5}=9$$

Now, we have determined that the number of strawberries is $s=9$.

To ensure correctness, we can check how many grapes correspond to this number of strawberries: $$g=5s=5\times 9=45$$

Thus, the calculations check out. The number of strawberries in the bowl is $\boxed{{\displaystyle 9}}$.