How do you solve a linear equation? - Answers

A linear equation simply means there are no squared's or cubed's or any other nasty bits in it. It could look like this:15x + 19 = 49To solve this, you subtract 19 from both sides to give:15x = 30Then divide both sides by 15 so you find x = 2You can sometimes find an equation with two variables in it such as 4x + 5y = 100. However you cant find two variables form one equation, you need two and this is called simultaneous equations.On the secondary problem, such as 4x + 5y = 100, you can use the substitution method.It involves setting the x to zero and solving, and then setting y to zero and solving.Let's solve for "y":4(0) + 5y = 1005y = 1005y/5 = 100/5y = 20Therefore the ordered pair is (0, 20)Let's solve for "x":4x + 5(0) = 1004x = 1004x/4 = 100/4x = 25Therefore the ordered pair is: (25, 0)