Question

How many whole numbers are there between $38$ and $68?$

Answer 1

Hint: When we want to find the number of whole numbers between two numbers, we need to find the difference between the numbers. Then, we will have to subtract $1$ from the difference of the numbers.

Complete step-by-step answer:
We are given with two numbers, $38$ and $68.$
We are asked to find the number of whole numbers between these two whole numbers.
Suppose that we are asked to find the number of whole numbers between two numbers $x$ and $y.$ To find the number, we should first find the difference of the numbers. Since we are finding the count, it will be positive. For this reason, we need to subtract the small one from the large one. Suppose $b>a.$
So, the difference between these numbers is $b-a.$
Now that we have found the difference, we need to subtract $1$ from this difference.
And as a result of subtracting $1$ from the difference of $a$ and $b,$ we will get $b-a-1.$
So, the number of whole numbers between the numbers $a$ and $b$ is $b-a-1.$
So, let us apply this in our problem.
Before that, let us consider the whole numbers between $38$ and $68.$
We know that $39,40,...,67$ are the numbers between the given numbers.
So, we can find the number of whole numbers between the given numbers can be found by subtracting $1$ from the difference of $38$ and $68.$
We know that the difference between $38$ and $68$ is $68-38=30.$
So, the number of whole numbers between the given numbers is $30-1=29.$
Hence there are $29$ whole numbers between $38$ and $68.$

Note: We can also count the whole numbers from $39$ to $67$ in order to find the number of whole numbers between the given two numbers. But it is not always possible. If the difference is very large, it will be difficult for us to count the numbers as it would take much more time for us to count such a large number of whole numbers. For example, if we are asked to find the number of whole numbers between $1$ and $999,$ it is easy to find the number by doing $999-1-1=997.$