Mr. boll can pick a bale of cotton by hand in 5 days. if his son joins him in the work, they can pick a bale in 3 days. how long would the son take to do the job?

we have three similar triangles, because each has a right angle and shares an angle.   let's write the angles in order: opposite to short leg, long leg, hypotenuse.

cab similar to bad similar to cbd

or as ratios,

ca: ab: cb = ba: ad: bd = cb: bd: cd

we also know

ac = ad + cd

(ad+cd): ab: cb = ba: ad: bd = cb: bd: cd

(ad+cd)/cb=cb/cd

we have cb=6, ad=5 and seek x=cd.

we reject the negative root and conclude x=4

answer: 4

-8/2y-8=5/y+4-7y+8/y^2-16

we move all terms to the left:

-8/2y-8-(5/y+4-7y+8/y^2-16)=0

we can not solve this equation