Yesterday in the playground the ratio of boys to girls was . Today, the number of boys is the square of the number of girls and there are boys and girls less than yesterday. How many children were there in the playground yesterday?
Slovenia — National Math Olympiad
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Solution
Yesterday there were boys and girls in the playground. Today, there are boys and girls. From we get , so . The only possible solution is , since is an integer. Yesterday there were boys and girls in the playground, or children altogether.
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