This is the formula for the maximum number of steak dinners, which I linked you to on page one of this thread:
Maximum stkdinners = (budget - chkcost(guests))/(stkcost-chkcost)
What you need however, is the minimum number of guests to order the chicken dinner.
How would you suggest rearranging or changing the above equation, to get that answer?
Ummm... not to complicate things but wouldn't this have to be based on some kind of statistical information about who orders what across a large number of weddings? I'm aware this is just an exercise, but does it give enough information to actually solve the problem?Originally Posted by Adak
Yes, it does give all the info you need. You have to (at least I did) think in terms of Algebra, solving one variable in terms of the other, and then working from that.
There is a way to do it directly in arithmetic, but that takes *real* arithmetic, and that was a long time ago.
The simple answer for me, since the first problem like this needed the maximum number of steak dinners possible, was simply:
minimum chicken dinners = guests - maximum steak dinners
It's a given in the problem, that the budget and guests will have values such that guests * cost of chicken dinner will be < budget for the reception dinner, and guests * cost of steak dinner will be > budget.
Last edited by Adak; 09-11-2011 at 05:21 PM.
