Question

The sum of the present ages of a father and his son is 36 years. When the son reaches the father's present age, the sum of their ages will be 80 years. What is the present age of the son?

Answer 1

The son's present age is approximately 14.67 years, which means he's about 15 years old when rounded off to the nearest whole year.

Step-by-step explanation:

In mathematics, this is a type of algebraic problem. Let's define the son's present age as 'x' years and the father's present age would then be '36-x' years (since their combined age is 36 years).

Now, when the son reaches the father's present age, the father would have aged by the same amount of years. Therefore, the combined age at that point would be 'x + (36-x) + 2x', which is given as 80 years. We can set up the equation and solve for 'x' which will give us the son's present age:

x + (36 - x) + 2x = 80;

3x = 44;

x = 44 / 3 ~= 14.67

So, the son's present age is approximately 14.67 years, which means the son is about 15 years old when rounding off to the nearest whole year.

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