# Simple Question

1. Jan 30, 2012

### xuhaib20

Lets Suppose we have 251 Items in stock and we want to convert it into Boxes and single items. How can we do that. I want result like that
E.g 50 boxes 1 item

Total Items # 251 items

items per box = 5

251/5 = 50.2

But result must be as 50 boxes and 1 item

2. Jan 30, 2012

### DivisionByZro

251 is a prime number, which means that it has no other divisors than itself and 1. You have 3 possibilities, 1 box with 251 items, 251 boxes with 1 item, or N+1 boxes with $$\lfloor \frac{251}{N} \rfloor$$ items and with at least one box with >=1 item. Is this what you were asking?

3. Jan 30, 2012

### checkitagain

50.2 boxes

Two-tenths of a box means

$$\dfrac{0.2 \ box}{1}\cdot \frac{5 \ items}{box} \ = \ ?$$

4. Jan 31, 2012

### 20Tauri

Maybe you could use division with remainder? i.e., 251/5 = 50 r 1. The way you'd do this on a calculator is you'd compute 251/5 = 50.2. You'd take 50 to be the number of boxes, and then subtract away the whole number to get 0.2, then multiply 0.2 * 5=1 to get the remainder. This is essentially a different way of looking at the explanation in the post above mine.

5. Feb 2, 2012

### coolul007

Another approach is to use the sum 125 + 126, then 125 = 5(25) and 126 = 6(21) = 5(25) + 1 . It is similar to a problem of finding the appearance of the "star" portion of the American flag when states are being added.