Intermediate Algebra with Applications, Fifth Edition
Richard N. Aufmann - Palomar College
Vernon C. Barker - Palomar College
Joanne S. Lockwood - Plymouth State College
Solve an Easier Problem
Visit www.sports.com to get a lisiting of the professional sports teams and how they are seperated into leagues and divisions. To appreciate how complicated the game schedules can be, try to create a partial schedule where each team in one of the conferences in the National Fottball League - for instance, the NFC East - plays each other team in that conference twice. An actual schedule would require scheduling an additional eight games for each team in the conference with selected teams in the other conferences.
Making connections to other problems you have solved is an important step toward becoming an excellent problem solver. How does the answer to the scheduling of teams relate to the triangular numbers discussed in the Focus in Problem Solving in the chapter titled Linear Functions and Inequalities in Two Variables?