How many squares for 6 people who want 6 quilts of 6x6 squares?

I was so confused at first, I didn’t read it correctly until I read your comment. They are asking for 6 quilts EACH! I had overlooked that part and thought all 6 customers wanted 1 quilt a piece, thank you!

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Hello folks,

Isn’t clear for me… sorry.

If one quilt there are 36 square, so 6 quilt has (36+36+36+36+36+36) = 216 square.

Why (6**4)?

Where I’m confused?

Tks.

Hello @henriquebuosilopes61, welcome to the forums! The reason it is 6**4 is that there are six people, each wants six quilts, and each quilts has thirty-six squares:

6//people
6 * 6//6 quilts per person
6 * 6 * 6 * 6//each quilt has 36 squares, or 6 * 6

6 * 6 * 6 * 6 is the same thing as 6**4.
I hope this helps!

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Thanks for the clear explanation!

This is really helpful. I couldn’t see where the 4 came from until you helped. Now it’s obvious.

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Good Explanation! Thank you :+1:

This is helpful, thanks. I think I was thrown by the fact that nowhere in the question does it tell you that the actual patches are 6x6, only that the entire quilt is 6x6.

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To answer this question we do not need to know how big the patches are.

quilt   =>  6 patches by 6 patches  =>  36 patches per quilt
orders  =>  6 orders of 6 each      =>  36 orders in all

That gives us 36 times 36 total patches needed.

36 * 36  =>  6 ** 2 * 6 ** 2

By exponent law, powers with identical bases, multiplied,

a ** m  *  a ** n  =>  a ** (m + n)  

6 ** (2 + 2)  =>  6 ** 4
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My thought exactly- though I did 36 ** 2, math is a beautiful thing, various ways to arrive at the same conclusion!

Your answer help me so much!
Thank you sensei!!

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Thank you for this amazing explanation. I’m not the greatest when it comes to math so I always need a strong visual explanation when I can’t process it in my head.

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6 quilts = 36 * 6 = 216
print(216 * 6)#so 216 per person is 216 and for 6 persons is 216 * 6

(6^2)^2

You’re basically squaring the squaring in this instance :wink:

I understand that the principle of the exercise is to teach the syntax basics of using exponents etc. but I found it much easier to simply define the number of people, number of quilts, and the number of squares per quilt as variables and then

print(number_of_quilts * number_of_people * squares_per_quilt)

assuming that finding the # of squares per
quilt is already known and not calculated withing the final equation.

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thanks! now I understand

1 quilt = 6 * 6 = 36
6 quilts = 1 quilt * 6 = 36 * 6 = 216
6 quilts for 6 people = (6 quilts * 6) = 216 * 6 = 1296

To get a simplified expression, simplify the answer:
1296 = 6 * 6 * 6 * 6 = 216 * 6 = (6 ** 3) * 6
Therefore: print((6**3) * 6)

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Or simpler still, 6 ** 4.

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Thanks, this way made it easier to understand the question!

Size of a quilt = 66=36.
A person needs 6 quilts. Hence, The number of squares required for a person is 36
6 = 216.
In our problem, we have 6 people. So, total squares required = 216*6 = 1296.

Awesome this helped me understand it a lot better. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do any kind of math problem. Anyway I wanted to elaborate on Coro’s explanation a bit more. I was so hung up on expressing it as an exponent I didn’t try to figure out the problem first.

Anyway, so the way I figured out how to express it as an exponent is by working backwards: 36 is 6 squared then you add an exponent every time it’s multiplied by the same number. Hence the answer is 6 cubed or (6 ** 4)