An isosceles triangle has two sides of equal length. The third side is 5 less than twice the length of one of the other sides. If the perimeter of the triangle is 23 cm, what is the length of the third side? Explain how you would define a variable for this problem.

Every weekday, mr. jones bikes from his home to his job. sometimes he rides along two roads, the long route that is shown by the solid lines. other times, he takes the shortcut shown by the dashed line. how many fewer kilometers does mr. jones bike when he takes the shortcut instead of the long route?