Question

Sapphire and Abe are shelving books at a public library. Sapphire shelves 5 books at a time, where as Abe shelves 6 at a time. If they end up shelving the same number of books, what is the smallest number of books each could have shelved.

Answer 1

the answer is 30 because 5×6=30 and 6×5=30.So the smallest number of books each could have shelved is 30 books...

Answer 2

The smallest number of books each could have shelved = 30 books

Explanation:

We have given that:

Sapphire shelves 5 books at a time and Abe shelves 6 books at a time.

If they end up shelving the same number of books, then we need to find smallest number of books each could have shelved.

That means, we need to find the smallest number that is the multiple of both 5 and 6.

Taking LCM of 5 and 6.

We get LCM of 5 and 6 is 30.

And 30 is the smallest number of books each could have shelved.