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Translation into Mathematical Expressions 2538 Views

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Description:

Rigging your friend's scale so it looks like she's shedding the pounds: being a good friend, or being a total creeper? Translate a word problem into mathematical expressions and find out for yourself. (Our take: don't try this on any of your friends at home.)

Language:

English Language

Subjects:

Basic Algebra / Algebraic Expressions

Common Core Standards:

Transcript

00:04
Translation into Mathematical Expressions, a la Shmoop.
00:09
Slash McFender, lead guitarist for the band Vibradeath is on his way to headline a concert.
00:15
Only one tiny problem...he forgot his guitar at home.
00:19
Thankfully, he has a thick jungle of chest hair which he can pluck to play some tunes.
00:28
Suppose that the frequency of vibration of Slash's chest hair is inversely proportional

00:34
to the hair's length. If one of Slash's hairs is 0.7 inches long
00:43
and vibrates at 5 Hertz... ...what frequency, in Hertz, would a 0.5 inch
00:49
long chest hair have? We start by calling the frequency F and the
00:54
length of the chest hair L. The problem tells us that the formula for
00:59
the frequency of F is one over L. So F equals K over L, where K is the constant
01:07
of proportionality.
01:09
To find K, we can plug in what we know... ...Frequency is equal to 5 in this instance
01:17
and our length is 0.7. By multiplying both sides by 0.7...
01:28
...we see that K equals 3.5. So, plugging this new value into our formula...
01:41
... the frequency F of a 0.5 inch long chest hair must be...
01:51
...7 Hertz. The bad news is that Slash loves Vibradeath's
01:56
new sound so much that he has asked his bandmates to start going shirtless as well.
02:05
He's really redefining the term "hair band."
Full Transcript