Finite math teaches you how to use basic mathematic processes to solve

problems in business and finance. For example, you can use linear programming
to stay within a budget.

When you’re dealing with money, you want a maximum value if you’re receiving
cash. But if you’re on a tight budget and have to watch those pennies, then
you’re concerned with minimizing your expenses. The following is a minimization
problem dealing with saving money on supplements.

You’re on a special diet and know that your daily requirement of five nutrients is
60 milligrams of vitamin C, 1,000 milligrams of calcium, 18 milligrams of iron, 20
milligrams of niacin, and 360 milligrams of magnesium. You have two
supplements to choose from: Vega Vita and Happy Health. Vega Vita costs 20
cents per tablet, and Happy Health costs 30 cents per tablet. Vega Vita contains
20 milligrams of vitamin C, 500 milligrams of calcium, 9 milligrams of iron, 2
milligrams of niacin, and 60 milligrams of magnesium. Happy Health contains 30
milligrams of vitamin C, 250 milligrams of calcium, 2 milligrams of iron, 10
milligrams of niacin, and 90 milligrams of magnesium. How many of each tablet
should you take each day to meet your minimum requirements while spending
the least amount of money?

A good way to organize this is to make a chart or table listing the requirements,
costs, and amount of nutrients in each tablet.

With all the information organized into the table, it’s time to solve for the number
of tablets that will minimize your cost using linear programming.
1. Choose variables to represent the quantities involved.
The quantities here are the number of tablets. Let a tablet of Vega Vita
be represented by v and a tablet of Happy Health be represented
by h.

2. Write an expression for the objective function using the

variables.
The goal is to spend the smallest amount of money necessary (so you
want the minimum). Vega Vita costs 20 cents per tablet, and Happy
Health costs 30 cents per tablet.
Minimize: $0.20v + $0.30h

3. Write constraints in terms of inequalities using the

variables.
The constraints are all in terms of meeting the daily requirements.
Each requirement has at least in its form, so you use the greater
than or equal to symbol in your equations.

It makes no sense to have a negative number of tablets, so you add

the two constraints

This keeps the graph in the first quadrant.

4. Graph the feasible region using the constraint statements.

The graph will be completely in the first quadrant and will be
boundless; the solution area extends forever upward and to the right,
as shown in the figure. You’re more concerned with the points closer
to the axes, though.
 Graphing
the combinations of nutrients in the two tablets.

5. Identify the corner points of the feasible region.

There are four corner points. Two of the corner points are where lines
corresponding to the constraints intersect, and the other two lie on the
axes.

o Intersection of 9v + 2h = 18 and 60v + 90h = 360:

o Intersection of 60v + 90h = 360 and 2v + 10h = 20:

o Intercept on vertical axis: (0, 9)

 o Intercept on horizontal axis: (10, 0)
The following figure shows the feasible with the corner points labeled.

Some
of the intersections involve fractions.

6. Find and compare the values at the corner points to

determine the solution.
You see that two of the intersections contain fractions of tablets. Yes,
you can buy one of those handy-dandy pill cutters, but these are pretty
strange fractions. It’s best to just round the numbers up to a whole
number (a whole tablet). So the corner points you’ll consider are (2,
4), (5, 2), (0, 9), and (10, 0).
It appears that you have two choices. You can either take two Vega
Vita and four Happy Health each day or five Vega Vita and two Happy
Health each day. They cost the same amount. Of course, the first
choice is fewer pills, but the Vega Vita may be easier to swallow. It’s
up to you.