A store sold 235 robots over the course of twelve months. Each month, 16, 20, or 25 robots were sold. Find the number of months in which exactly 20 robots were sold.
Solution
If exactly 16 robots were sold each month, the number of the robots sold would have been . The difference of 43 robots comes from the months where 20 robots were sold (4 more each month) and from the months where 25 robots were sold (9 more each month). Denote by and the number of months where 20 robots were sold and where 25 robots were sold, respectively. We have ,
therefore is an odd number which does not exceed 4. We obtain that , therefore exactly 20 robots were sold in months.
Alternative solution.
Let be the number of months in which 16, 20, and 25 robots were sold, respectively. We have , thus , therefore , consequently . If , we obtain and , which leads to , false. If , we have and and we obtain , therefore exactly 20 robots were sold in months.