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Which name of a large American city does the following equation represent?

$$ x^2+15600=649x $$

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  • $\begingroup$ Weird that the answer gets more up-votes than the asker. $\endgroup$ Jun 28, 2015 at 16:12
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    $\begingroup$ @ghosts I don't find it that surprising, given that it's a pretty dumb riddle with only one posted solution. I'm actually surprised that I got this many upvotes! $\endgroup$ Jun 28, 2015 at 16:15

1 Answer 1

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The city you are referring to is

Chicago

Solving the quadratic equation gives us $x = 25$ or $x = 624$. Or to put it another way, it's '25 or 6 to 4', a song by the band Chicago.

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    $\begingroup$ To the creator, may I suggest rephrasing the riddle to, "what name of a large American city do the roots of this equation represent"? The answer above doesn't involve solving the equation, but rather finding its roots. To say that the entire equation describes a name is a bit generous. $\endgroup$
    – bcf
    Jun 28, 2015 at 13:17
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    $\begingroup$ @bcf I thought about that, but 1) In this case you are actually finding the solution to an equation (which are the roots of the polynomial $x^2-649x+15600$), and 2) I thought that it would make an already simple puzzle way too easy. $\endgroup$ Jun 28, 2015 at 16:19

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