I Used Algebra Today

Yes, all of those years of math finally paid off. Today I made Kung Pao Chicken for a company dinner, and the recipe called for 4 cups of cooked rice. Well, I know that one should use twice as much water as rice but I just couldn’t figure out in my head how much of each to make exactly 4 cups. So I wrote out on my white-board two equations:\par
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W + R\’c3\’82\’c2\~= 4c\par
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R= 1/2W\par
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Then I used my oh-so-advanced algebra skills to write R in terms of\’c3\’82\’c2\~W and feed it into the first equation. I was so proud of myself because I actually remembered how to do that! Who says you can’t use algebra in day-to-day life?\par
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Incidentally, to make exactly 4 cups of rice you need 2 2/3c. water and 1 1/3c. rice.