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Finding the Optimum

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The purpose of this project is to find the values of x and y that will yield the optimum (maximum or minimum) value of a system and the optimum value of a system using algebraic and graphical methods.

Follow these ten steps (see mp1.jpg) to determine the optimum value of z and the values of x and y that yield the optimum value.

The second attachment (mp1.jpg) has a similar project aimed at finding the dimensions of a picture frame that will give the largest possible interior area.

See attached file for full problem description.

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Solution Summary

The solution explains how to find the extrema (max or min) of a function z = f(x, y) in a step-by-step manner. A similar method is used in an example involving finding a maximum area for a picture frame.

Solution Preview

**See the attached file for the same text.**

Question 1: For the first problem, I'm just going to follow the steps that the problem spells out (the goal of this problem is to find a local maximum or minimum of f(x, y)). For the first two steps, I'm just making up equations.

1. z = f(x, y) = 5x2 + 2y

2. y = 3x + 5

3. Equation 2 is already solved for y, so we don't have to do any extra work here.

4. I'm going to choose x = 0.

5. y = 3(0) + 5 = 0 + 5 = 5

6. Plug x = 0 and y = 5 into equation 1:

f(x, y) = 5x2 + 2y
f(0, 5) = 5(0)2 + 2(5) = 0 + 10 = 10
z = 10

7. If you do steps 4 - 6 with many values of x, you get the following values of y and z:

x y z
-5 -10 105
-4 -7 66
-3 -4 37
-2 -1 18
-1 2 9
0 5 10
1 8 21
2 11 42
3 14 73
4 17 114
5 20 165
6 23 226
7 26 297
8 29 378
9 32 469
10 35 570

It looks like there is a minimum of z = 9 (you just look for the smallest value of z). This happens when x = -1. Let's look at values of x close to ...

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