Need help with equally dividing a 2D line, but with a catch (sort of)

[annopolis230]

Aight, I'm sure if I'll make much sense here but all I need is help with equally diving a line segment into a certain number of steps. I'm sure there's a fancy math name for this, but I don't know it.

I figured out how to do it about a week ago but I've completely forgotten so I need a bit of a refresher. Anyway, here's my problem:



I have a two dimensional line segment with a length of 10 units. I need to equally divide this segment into 5 equal parts, however each "divider" on the segment is 0.2 units long. The simple answer would be to divide them by 2, since 10/5 is 2, but then the very last divider would be off, since the dividers have lengths of their own.

It's pretty late right now so I'm sure I'm just being stupid, but this is about to drive me crazy if I don't figure this out. I'm not sure if I made much sense here, but thanks for the help in advance.

 

[mmm4444bot]

I figured out how to do it about a week ago but I've completely forgotten so I need a bit of a refresher. Anyway, here's my problem:

I have a … line segment with a length of 10 units. I need to … divide this segment into 5 equal parts, however each "divider" … is 0.2 units long.

You would like 5 equal-length parts spaced 0.2 units apart, such that the overall length is 10 units.

Is this correct? If so, then:

[number of parts times part-length] + [number of gaps times gap-length] = total length

You know four out of the five quantities above. Solve for the unknown.

If you're still a bit puzzled, it might help to sketch a picture. :cool: