Are simultaneous equations used to calculate values in the real world?
Yes, they’re used all the time. Suppose you’re designing a boat. Maybe you want it to be fast, but you also want it to be fairly stable at sea. By placing conditions, you are in effect insisting that the boat satisfy equations. This is true, of course, in almost any situation where you’re desigining an object or modifying and existing one so as to have more desirable properties. The hard part is how to take these “real world” conditions and quantify them by mathematical equations. For instance, what really controlls how fast a boat will sail? Well, if your boat does not hydroplane, then its speed is limited by the length of its hull. On the other hand, you can imagine that a boat which is very long (but not very wide) may be more succeptible to rolling from side to side. Anyway, I tried to choose an example which was quite general. If you want a “textbook” version of a “real world” problem, there are lots of easy ones: 1. Economics: finding the equlibrium point involves solving two sim
