Proportions Needed

[mathmoron2020]

Hi,

TLDR;
I want to find out how much of something I can make depending upon how much/many materials I have on-hand and given there is an uneven ratio of materials required.

Short Background
I'm 54. I consider myself to be an above-average person in the smarts category but not anything special. However, I truly, truly struggle with all types of math, even basic math. But I'm really good at language (I speak Japanese fluently) and at music (I play professionally). Both language and music are languages. I'm an audio-visual sort of learner, I guess. So I think the way math is taught is to blame, perhaps because its all based upon human language (English, in my case). So thank you for your help!!

Problem: I want to make a "Thingamajig" (it could be anything, so let's just use an imaginary word).

Example:

I have 3400 pentists and 400 shizzos in my inventory (made-up words, too).

One thingamajig= 12 pentists and 8 shizzos.

How many thingamajigs can I make with my current inventory?

My mind freezes up when I have to figure out how many units I can make given the amount of inventory I have on hand. Do I divide? If so, do I divide two sets of numbers? Or do I multiply? What if I have an uneven amount of materials? Gah! I'm totally lost!

Goal:
I'd like to make this into an excel formula so that I can simply enter the amount of each into inventory and get an answer as to how many thingamajigs I can make.

Can someone help me with this?

Thanks!

 

[Dr.Peterson]

If you had two different kinds of things you were making from the same two raw materials, this would be a classic algebra problem. As it is, it's just an arithmetic problem.

How many T's can you make from 3400 P's, given that it takes 12 P's to make a T? 3400 / 12 = 283 and a fraction. The reason we divide is that we are answering the question, 12 times what makes 3400, and we find the missing factor by dividing.

How many T's can you make from 400 S's, given that it takes 8 S's to make a T? 400 / 8 = 50.

Take the smaller of the two numbers, and you can make 50T's. In this case, it's the S's that limit your production. In Excel, you could use an IF or a MIN to make this decision.

Does that help?

 

[mathmoron2020]

Thanks but not yet.

In order to make one "T", we need two materials, 12 of item one and 8 of item two. (Btw, is this known as a "twelve to eight" ratio" 12:8?)

Or did I misunderstand you. Please be as literal as possible. My forum user name may help

Thank you!

M.

 

[lev888]

Thanks but not yet.

In order to make one "T", we need two materials, 12 of item one and 8 of item two. (Btw, is this known as a "twelve to eight" ratio" 12:8?)

Or did I misunderstand you. Please be as literal as possible. My forum user name may help

Thank you!

M.

Yes, that's 12:8 ratio. But why do you think you need it to calculate the max number of items you can make?

 

[mathmoron2020]

Thank you.

I need to calculate the max number of items possible to make because when I add to inventory I want to know how many items are possible to make from the inventory on hand. So for example, in the Google Sheets cell I want to (at any time) enter the amount of item one and item two that I have on hand. I'd like to know, based upon those dynamic entries, how many "T"s I can make as as result, not the other way around.

Make sense?

Thank you again. I feel foolish for not knowing how to figure this out on my own.

 

[Dr.Peterson]

Thanks but not yet.

In order to make one "T", we need two materials, 12 of item one and 8 of item two. (Btw, is this known as a "twelve to eight" ratio" 12:8?)

Or did I misunderstand you. Please be as literal as possible. My forum user name may help

Thank you!

M.

I did try to be as literal as possible, and I did take your user name literally (though I usually don't believe people who claim to be stupid). Ironically, you are not taking your user name literally; you are presuming that you know what needs to be done, and not trusting an answer that disagrees.

The ratio you point out is irrelevant. You are making things more complicated than they are. Try reading again what I said, slowly.

 

[Steven G]

You have 400 shizzos. Each thing requires 8 shizzos. So you take 8 shizzos and you tape them up and put it on the side. So now you have 400-8= 392 shizzos left. Then you take 8 more from the pile (of 392 shizzos) leaving 384 shizzos tape them up and put them on the side. Now you take 8 more......
The question is how 8s are there in 400. That is a long division problem. It turns out that 400 divided by 8 is 50. This means that you have enough shizzos to make 50 things.

Now you do the same with pentists. You have 3400 pentists and each think requires 12 pentists. So again you start making groups of 12. How many groups of 12 can you make from 3400? That is solved by computing 3400/12 which is 283 with 4 left over. So you have enough pentists to make 283 things.

Now you can't make 283 things because you do not have 283 shizzos. But you can make 50 things.

In terms of ordering you should order in the ratio 8 to 12 or 8:12. That is you should order 8*k of shizzos for every 12*k of pentists you order for any value of k you like.

 

[mathmoron2020]

I did try to be as literal as possible, and I did take your user name literally (though I usually don't believe people who claim to be stupid). Ironically, you are not taking your user name literally; you are presuming that you know what needs to be done, and not trusting an answer that disagrees.

The ratio you point out is irrelevant. You are making things more complicated than they are. Try reading again what I said, slowly.

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it. I will try re-reading it and not over-think it.

 

[mathmoron2020]

You have 400 shizzos. Each thing requires 8 shizzos. So you take 8 shizzos and you tape them up and put it on the side. So now you have 400-8= 392 shizzos left. Then you take 8 more from the pile (of 392 shizzos) leaving 384 shizzos tape them up and put them on the side. Now you take 8 more......
The question is how 8s are there in 400. That is a long division problem. It turns out that 400 divided by 8 is 50. This means that you have enough shizzos to make 50 things.

Now you do the same with pentists. You have 3400 pentists and each think requires 12 pentists. So again you start making groups of 12. How many groups of 12 can you make from 3400? That is solved by computing 3400/12 which is 283 with 4 left over. So you have enough pentists to make 283 things.

Now you can't make 283 things because you do not have 283 shizzos. But you can make 50 things.

In terms of ordering you should order in the ratio 8 to 12 or 8:12. That is you should order 8*k of shizzos for every 12*k of pentists you order for any value of k you like.

Thank you very much for your help. This way helps me visualize it, and as I'm a visual sort of person it really clicks. I also appreciate Dr. Peterson's approach as well. Both help a lot!

Thank you!