Youssef is taking a trip on an airplane. He knows that to avoid extra fees his suitcase must weigh under 50 pounds. The suitcase with his clothes weighs 35 pounds. He has room, so he decides to pack some books for his trip, too. Each book weighs on average 1.2 pounds.

Question

How many books could he bring on the trip? He writes the inequality 1.2b + 35 < 50, where b equals the number of books, to help figure this out. Solve his inequality. Use the letter o as your variable and write your b term first.

Answer 1

To solve the inequality for the number of books Youssef can take, we will simply replace the 'b' in the inequality with 'o' to match your instructions, and then solve for 'o'. The inequality now becomes:

1.2o + 35 < 50

To solve for o, we first need to isolate the variable on one side of the inequality:

1. Subtract 35 from both sides of the inequality to get the term with 'o' by itself:

1.2o + 35 - 35 < 50 - 35

1.2o < 15

2. Next, divide both sides of the inequality by 1.2 to solve for 'o':

1.2o / 1.2 < 15 / 1.2

o < 12.5

Since Youssef cannot take a fraction of a book with him, we will need to round down to the nearest whole number. So, Youssef can take at most 12 books with him to avoid the suitcase weighing over 50 pounds.