I had this situation that I wanted to understand how many purchases at 60 dollars each would it take to average the total purchases out to about 60 dollars when one purchase was 48,000 dollars. This is assuming all purchases besides the one 48K purchase were 60 dollar purchases. I thought this equation represented the question
$$\frac{60x + 48000}{x+1}=60.$$
But apparently it's not because the above equation is unsolvable.
Could someone explain how to find the answer to a question like this please?
thank you
If you have one purchase above $60$ dollars, no number of purchases at $60$ dollars will bring the average down to $60$. The average will always be (maybe very slightly) above $60$. The equation you give is correct and the fact that it cannot be solved is evidence of my claim in the first two sentences. Note that if your subsequent purchases were at $59$, the equation would become $\frac{59x+48000}{x+1}=60$ which can be solved to give $x=47940$