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Solving Systems of Linear Equations, a la Shmoop.
Okay... let's take a second and get over the intimidating name...
...and start taking names and kicking some Math.
One of the simplest ways to think about Systems of Linear Equations is that they are all about
relationships. No... not like that one person in your grade
who's been serial dating since they could talk.
We mean numbers that can relate to each other. These relationships can be broken down into
simple parts. Let's think about the two brothers in the
latest Plumber Brothers video game. If Shmario...
... has stomped on the heads of twice the number of Shmoopas that his brother Shmuigi...
has smashed... ...AND...
...Shmuigi stomps on 9 more Shmoopas... ... he'll have jumped on twice as many Shmoopas
as his stout, red overall-sporting brother, Shmario.
If you use both of these relationships... ... you can figure out just how many Shmoopas
each brother has shmooshed already. All we do is substitute for one of the values.
Here we can see that R equals two times G. So we can replace the R in the second relationship
with 2 G. Now we have just one equation...
... and we can find G by using some good old subtraction and division.
Once we have G, we plug it back into the original... ... and we have our Shmoopa count.
As you can see, relationships can help us get to the bottom of this sibling rivalry.
Now on to Shmonic the Hedgehog...