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I need help with the #1 question. linear Programming is applied. 1. Consider the recipes below:

Pancakes                           -Waffles 
3 cups Bisquick                     3 cups Bisquick 
1 cup Milk.                         2 cups Milk
2 eggs.                             2 eggs 
Serves 6.                           Serves 5

You have 24 cups of Bisquick, 18 cups of milk, and 20 eggs. If you want to feed as many people as possible, how many batches of each should you make?

I barely understand linear Programming so this confused me even more. The ingredients confuse me. I kind of know the basics of linear Programming but this one, I don't understand. I need help please, thank you.

callculus42
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Be ar
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    "I kind of know the basics of linear Programming". OK, so start by tackling the three basic questions in order: What are the variables? What are the constraints? What is the objective function? – Peter Taylor Aug 10 '19 at 15:04
  • Without any number crunching, which of the two recipes is more efficient at serving people? If I give up a batch of waffles, can I make one more batch of pancakes? What does that do to the number of people I feed? – Fabio Somenzi Aug 10 '19 at 15:54
  • I guess it'll be P for Pancakes and W for waffles. So it'll be 6P + 5W? – Be ar Aug 11 '19 at 16:59

1 Answers1

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Firstly we define the variables: $x_1$: Multiple of pancake recipe, $x_2$: Multiple of waffle recipe.

We want to maximize the total amount of serves. Therefore the objective function is

$$\text{max} \ \ 6x_1+5x_2$$

Next we have several constraints for the ingredients. For instance, that you have 24 cups of Bisquick. The corresponding constraint is

$$3x_1+3x_2\leq 24$$

If we use the double amount of the pancake recipe and three times of the waffles recipe we need $3\cdot 2+3\cdot 3=15<24$ cups of Bisquick. The constraint is fulfilled. You can call this constraint the Bisquick constraint. You make similar constraints for milk and eggs.

Finally we need the non-negativity constraint: $x_1,x_2\geq 0$. This real world problem requires that the variables are integers, but at the first step we can use the non-negativity constraint.


Update

The coefficients of the objective functions are negative in the table since it is a max problem. The first row is the objective function. For each $\leq$-problem we need a slack variable ($s_i)$.

$$\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|} \hline \color{blue}{x_1}&x_2&s_1&s_2&s_3&RHS \\ \hline -6&-5&0&0&0&0 \\ \hline \color{red}3&3&1&0&0&24 \\ \hline 1&2&0&1&0&18\\ \hline 2&2&0&0&1&20\\ \hline \end{array}$$

This is the initial table. The pivot column is $x_1$ since $|-6|$ is larger than $|-5|$. Now we look for the minimum of the fractions of the RHS and the corresponding coefficients of colunm $x_1$.

$\min\left(\frac{24}{3},\frac{18}{1},\frac{20}{2}\right)=\min\left(8,18,10\right)=8$

That means the pivot row is the second row in the table. And therefore the first pivot element is $\color{red}3$.

callculus42
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  • Thank you callculus. I still don't fully understand it but you've given me something to start on. – Be ar Aug 11 '19 at 17:00
  • Please specify your question. What is unclear? – callculus42 Aug 11 '19 at 17:05
  • @Bear If you don´t have any further question please mark the answer as accepted. – callculus42 Aug 11 '19 at 19:31
  • I'm just really having a hard time understanding Math. But after your answer, I actually studied about it . So thank you. I will accept you answer. I'm sorry, I didn't know you could do that here haha – Be ar Aug 12 '19 at 12:06
  • @Bear Thanks for accepting. I´m glad that all is clear now. – callculus42 Aug 12 '19 at 12:10
  • could you help me construct a table for this problem. I need the system, vertex, and coordinates. I know the coordinates, I just don't understand about the system part. Pleaseee♥️ – Be ar Aug 13 '19 at 10:49
  • @Bear I´ve posted some answers which show how to solve such problems graphically, e.g. here and here. For the table I will make an update. – callculus42 Aug 13 '19 at 12:43