12 times what equals 42?

12 times what equals 42? In other words, what do you multiply by 12 to get 42? If "x" is "what" in the sentence, "12 times what equals 42?", then the equation to solve the problem is as follows:

12 • x = 42

Which can be written as:

12x = 42

To solve the equation above, we need to remove the 12 on the left side to make the x alone. To do that, we divide both sides by 12.

12x/12 = 42/12

12x/12 is x and 42/12 is 3.5 which means our equation will look like this:

x = 3.5

Thus, the answer to "12 times what equals 42?" is 3.5.

To double-check our work, multiply 3.5 by 12 to see that it equals 42. (Note that our answer on this page is rounded to 4 digits if necessary.)

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