Oscar is making a triangular pennant. the height, in inches, of the pennant is equal to twice the difference of 16 and the product of 2 and the length of its base. if the area of the pennant, a(x), can be modeled by a quadratic function where x represents the length of the base, in inches, then what is the maximum potential area of the pennant?

Aprisoner is trapped in a cell containing three doors. the first door leads to a tunnel that returns him to his cell after two days of travel. the second leads to a tunnel that returns him to his cell after three days of travel. the third door leads immediately to freedom. (a) assuming that the prisoner will always select doors 1, 2 and 3 with probabili- ties 0.5,0.3,0.2 (respectively), what is the expected number of days until he reaches freedom? (b) assuming that the prisoner is always equally likely to choose among those doors that he has not used, what is the expected number of days until he reaches freedom? (in this version, if the prisoner initially tries door 1, for example, then when he returns to the cell, he will now select only from doors 2 and 3.) (c) for parts (a) and (b), find the variance of the number of days until the prisoner reaches freedom. hint for part (b): define ni to be the number of additional days the prisoner spends after initially choosing door i and returning to his cell.