Question

zahlen and zeba together have 25 balloons to blow air in. both of them lost 5 balloons each due to bursting and the product of the number of balloons they now have, is 54. find out how many balloons they had to start with?

Answer 1

Zahlen and Zeba had either 11 and 14 balloons or 14 and 11 balloons respectively to start with, before losing 5 each and ending up with a product of 54 for the remaining balloons.

Step-by-step explanation:

Zahlen and Zeba together had a total of 25 balloons. After both of them lost 5 balloons each, we need to find out the original number of balloons each had considering the product of the remaining balloons they have is 54.

Let's assume Zahlen started with x balloons and Zeba started with (25 - x) balloons. After losing 5 balloons each, Zahlen has (x - 5) balloons left and Zeba has (20 - x) balloons left.

The product of the remaining balloons they have is:

(x - 5) × (20 - x) = 54

Solving this quadratic equation we get:

• x² - 25x + 100 + 54 = 0
• x² - 25x + 154 = 0
• This factors to (x - 11)(x - 14) = 0, giving us two possible solutions for x: 11 or 14.

So Zahlen had either 11 or 14 balloons initially, and Zeba had the remainder to make a total of 25 balloons.