How do you find the two different possible values?

Element x decays radioactively with a half life of 8 minutes. if there are 450 grams of element x, how long, to the nearest tenth of a minute, would it take the element to decay to 37 grams?

14 pointslet x be the seats in the small van and y the seats in the large van. how many seats does the large van have? a company uses two vans to transport worker from a free parking lot to the workplace between 7: 00 and 9: 00a.m. one van has 9 more seats than the other. the smaller van makes two trips every morning while the larger one makes only one trip. the two vans can transport 69 people, maximum.how many seats does the larger van have?

Just tell me how to set up the equation.