Let's start by recalling that we can use the percent equation to solve problems that involve percent.
Percent Equation [0.3em]
part = percent * whole
In this case, we want to find the number of which 40 % is 17, which means that we want to find the whole. Let w represent the whole.
17 = 40 % * w
Before we can solve the equation that we got, we need to write the percent as a decimal. We can write a percent as a decimal by ignoring the percent symbol and moving the decimal point two places to the left.
We got that 40 % is equal to 0.40 or 0.4.
17 = 40 % * w [0.3em] ↓ [0.3em]
17 = 0.4 * w
Finally, let's solve the equation for w. To do so, we will use the Division Property of Equality.
