Expert: Sherry Wallin - 1/15/2012

Question
Given the length and width (in feet and inches) of a rectangular room and the price per square yard for the carpeting, calculate the number of square yards of carpet to cover the floor, the cost for all the carpet, the sales tax (at 6.5% of the cost), and the total cost.


1.List all the inputs
2.List all the outputs
3.List all the constants that are required to move from the inputs to the outputs
4.List all the formulas that are required to move from the inputs to the outputs
5.List all the intermediate variables that are required to move from the inputs to the outputs
6.Make a table showing the inputs, intermediate variables, and outputs with 2 correct sets of values

Answer
Is this a linear programming problem?
I will help you by listing what you will need to do and you can make your table.

Let l = length in feet and li = length in inches (inputs)
(I am choosing to convert everything to inches and then convert to square yards since your problem wants inputs for both feet and inches)
Then l/12 (output) will convert the feet in length to inches and li + 1/12 is total inches in length and call it lt (output). Note that 12 is a constant
Let w = width in feet and wi = width in inches (inputs)then w/12 (output)will convert the feet in width to inches and w + wi is the total number of inches in the width, call it wt (output)
Thus (lt)(wt)= total number of square inches (output)and since there are 36(36)= 1296 square inches in a square yard (constant)
so the number of square yards is (lt)(wt)/1296 (output)call it n
Let p = cost per square yard (input) and np = cost for carpeting without tax
.065 is a constant for tax and thus 1.065(np) is the cost for the carpeting with tax

Math Prof