Question

The length of a rectangular field is 6 metres longer than its width. If the area of the field is 72 square metres, What are the width and the length of the field?​

Answer 1

Answer:

Let's call the length of the field "l", and the width of the field "w".

If the area of the field is 72 square meters, then we have:

l x w = 72

And if the length is 6 meters longer than the width, we have:

l = w+6

So looking at the first equation (l x w = 72), we can substitute the l for a w+6.

And we obtain:

(w+6) x (w) = 72

Which simplifies to w^2 + 6w = 72.

This quadratic equation is pretty easy to solve, you just need to factor it.

w^2 + 6w - 72 = 0

(w-6)(w+12)

This leaves the roots of the  quadratic equation to be 6 and -12, but in this case, a width of -12 wouldn't make sense.

So, the width of the rectangular field is 6, and the length of the field is 12.

Let me know if this helps!