A rich merchant had collected many gold coins. He did not want anybody to know about them. One day, his wife asked, "How many gold coins do we have"?. After pausing a moment, he replied, "Well if I divide the coins into two unequal numbers, then 48 times the difference between the two numbers equals the difference between the squares of the two numbers". The wife looked puzzled. Can you help the merchant's wife by finding out how many gold coins the merchant has ?

Options

A. 58
B. 96
C. 76
D. 48

Answer

D

Explanation

Let two unequal numbers of gold coins be x and y
i.e. x=y.
According to the question
`48(x - y) = x^2 - y^2`
or, `48(x - y) = (x + y)(x - y)`
or, `(x + y) (x - y) - 48(x - y) = 0 `
or, `(x - y) (x + y - 48) = 0 `
or, `(x - y)= 0` and `(x + y - 48) = 0`
But `(x - y) 1= 0 `[`because x != y ` i.e. x and y are unequal numbers]
So, `(x + y - 48) = 0`
or, `x + y = 48`
Therefore, total number of gold coins = `x + y = 48`.