Which name of a large American city does the following equation represent?
$$ x^2+15600=649x $$
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asked Jun 28, 2015 at 4:22
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$\begingroup$ Weird that the answer gets more up-votes than the asker. $\endgroup$– ghosts_in_the_codeJun 28, 2015 at 16:12
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2$\begingroup$ @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! $\endgroup$– 2012rcampionJun 28, 2015 at 16:15
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1 Answer
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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.
answered Jun 28, 2015 at 4:31
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2$\begingroup$ 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. $\endgroup$– bcfJun 28, 2015 at 13:17
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4$\begingroup$ @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