A person places $8430 in an investment account earning an annual rate of 3.8%, compounded continuously. Using the formula V = Pent, where V is the value of the
account in t years, P is the principal initially invested, e is the base of a natural
logarithm, and r is the rate of interest, determine the amount of money, to the
nearest cent, in the account after 16 years.

Best answer that i found on yahoo ok   set :   x= length of 2nd piece in cm  x- 3= length of 1st piece in cm  x-4= length of 3rd piece in cm  then since you know they all came from the 20 cm ribbon you add them together and set them equal to 20x+ x-3 +x-4 = 20  3x - 7= 20  3x= 27  x= 9  the shortest piece is the third piece which is x- 4  x-4  9-4 = 5  the length of the smallest piece is 5 cm.  the other lengths are  9 cm  6 cm