Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Well we need an equation for area first and foremost. The area of a rectangle is length times width, so let's define those. If we let the left side of the fence be length x, then the opposite side is also length x, and the top side is 100 - 2x (since we have 100 feet total of fencing). Now we have an equation for area: A = width * length = x(100-2x).

We want to maximize area here, so how would we do that?
thank you spoon. i guess my original statement comes off as lazy. sorry about that everyone. i assure you that's not the case.

ok so to find the max area of your example you would distribute the x, differentiate, set it equal to 0, solve for x then plug that into 100 - 2x to find the long side. so x = 25 and 100 - 2x = 50 and the max area is 1250. right?