Real-Life Math
You are an art restorer. You have just opened your own business,
and you are working on your first treatment. You are restoring a portrait
of a grandfather for your client's family. The portrait looks faded due
to the dust and dirt that has collected over the years, and the paint pigments
look dull.
To restore the painting to its original splendor, you will
have to completely refurbish and clean the portrait.
Before you can
repair the rip, fill in the cracks and retouch the dulled paint pigments,
you will have to clean the painting first. You take the portrait off its backboard
and frame and place it on your table.
You will have to be very careful
when you are preparing chemicals to treat the portrait because they are very
powerful. In the wrong amounts, the chemicals could destroy the painting that
you are trying to clean. For this reason, you will have to use some math skills.
"Math
is not a large component of the normal day for an art restorer, but it is
not absent," says restorer Sarah Spafford-Ricci.
"You will have to
calculate solute and solvent combinations, and other simple calculations are
required when we mix cleaning solutions and consolidates together."
Before
you can start with the restoration treatment, you will have to calculate the
concentration of cleaning solvent and water you are going to use.
You
estimate that a gallon of treatment solution will do the trick. The cleaning
solvent you have comes pre-mixed at 12 percent; however, you want to reduce
the concentration to 5 percent. How much water and cleaning solvent do you
mix to get the 5 percent solution?