To find the answer to "What two numbers have a product of -27 and a sum of 17?" we first state what we know. We are looking for x and y and we know that x • y = -27 and x + y = 17.
Before we keep going, it is important to know that x • y is the same as y • x and x + y is the same as y + x. The two variables are interchangeable. Which means that when we create one equation to solve the problem, we will have two answers.
To solve the problem, we take x + y = 17 and solve it for y to get y = 17 - x. Then, we replace y in x • y = -27 with 17 - x to get this:
x • (17 - x) = -27
Like we said above, the x and y are interchangeable, therefore the x in the equation above could also be y. The bottom line is that when we solved the equation we got two answers which are the two numbers that have a product of -27 and a sum of 17. The numbers are:
-1.46243
18.46243
That's it! The two numbers that have a product of -27 and a sum of 17 are -1.46243 and 18.46243 as proven below:
-1.46243 • 18.46243 ≈ -27
-1.46243 + 18.46243 = 17
Note: Answers are rounded up to the nearest five decimals if necessary so the answers may not be exact.
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