The area of a rectangle is 72 square meters and its length is twice its width. What is the length and width of the rectangle?

Answer 1

The length of the rectangle in question is 12 meters, and the width of the rectangle is 6 meters.

We solve this by knowing that the area of a rectangle is equal to the length (l) times the width (w). That formula looks like this:

Arectangle = l x w

We are told that the length is twice the width. Here's that idea in the form of an equation:

l = 2w

Since the length is twice the width, we can substitute the 2w for the l in the first equation. It looks like this:

Arectangle = 2w x w

Now we add the fact that the area was given as 72 meters2. and put it all together. It looks like this:

72 meters2 = 2w x w

72 meters2 = 2w2

36 meters2 = w2

sqrt 36 meters2 = w

6 meters = w

We have our width as 6 meters. The length is twice that, or 6 meters x 2 = 12 meters. There are our length and width. Let's check our work.

Area = length (12 meters) times width (6 meters) = 12m x 6m = 72 m2

Our work checks.