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Monday, May 4, 2015

Problem of the Week: Star Wars

Happy Monday, and a good May the 4th to any Star Wars fans in our audience! I discovered this problem while browsing the internet a few months ago, and I'm glad some simple googling led me to find it again. While this is not a particularly challenging Problem of the Week for our more advanced college and beyond followers, it's still a fun review of algebra!

I've transcribed the word problem that I found in this article. Isn't it great that such a young math student created this problem? I posted it on our Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages, and I've included my solution below.

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 This word problem is just that: wordy. Beneath the Star Wars jargon is an algebra problem similar to one you could find in the SAT math section, or on an algebra test. See my solution below...


Click to make the picture larger!
I created equations for what I knew first. I knew that the speeders would cost the initial plus the daily rate in imperial credits, and the same went for the bounty hunters. Then, I just set the equations equal to each other to find how many days it will take to make the costs equal.

We'll be back next week with a calculus based problem- this one was fun, but I know many of our followers crave more difficult math challenges. So stay tuned!

Does anyone have another math problem based on the Star Wars world? Is anyone else extremely excited to see the cross-guarded lightsaber from the trailers in action? Let us know in the comments!

-Tori

6 comments:

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  3. Hello. This looks great. Do you have any more of these?

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    1. Good morning. We have plenty more Problems of the Week! We post a new one every Tuesday, and every Thursday we post an Advanced Knowledge Problem of the Week. You can find these by searching Problem of the Week in the search bar or by click on the Problem of the Week label.

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  4. I think we should make the most of the star wars event to motivate students to learn more and more math. Success to all of us. Merry Christmas. from Brazil (write-me edmirterra@ufgd.edu.br)

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