ShmoopTube

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A little birdie told us you wanted to solve a Shmoopy problem.

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Four people can sit around one square table. When two tables are pushed together, six people

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will fit, and eight people will fit around three tables pushed together.

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How many square tables, pushed together in a long rectangle, would be needed to sit twenty people?

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Here are the potential answers...

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Here we’ve got square tables that keep getting pushed together to accommodate our rapidly growing party…

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We’re told that 4 people can sit at one square table, which makes sense…

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…6 people can fit around 2 tables…

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…and 8 people can fit around 3.

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The best way to get a sense of what's going on here is to make ourselves a little chart.

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So, if we expand this a tiny bit further, we get something like this:

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Aha! A pattern has emerged!

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What we might notice is that, in every instance,

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the number of people is double the number of tables… plus 2.

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So working in reverse, if we have 20 people, we’d subtract 2…

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… then cut that number in half.

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We get 9 as our answer… which is C.

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We’re sure your parents will understand you inviting over some friends.

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What they may not understand, however, is why you had to take out the dining room wall

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to make room for all of those folding tables…

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