A car mechanic rounds a car's weight to the nearest thousand. He says the weight is 4,000 pounds. What is the least and the greatest amounts the car actually weight? Explain.

Step-by-step explanation:

Given that a car mechanic rounds a car's weight to the nearest thousand

By rounding off to nearest 1000, we mean we look at the last three digits. If these digits are 500 or greater, then we round the thousands digit up, and if they are less than 500, then we round down, keeping the thousand's digit the same.

To simplify the above we can say the 100th digit if greater than or equal to 5, we round off the 1000th digit by 1 up otherwise leave it as it is

Example, 18765 is rounded off as 19000 while

15462 is rounded off as 15000

Here the answer after rounding off is 4000

This is possible if the weight was atleast 3500 because in this case he would round off to 4000 or highest 4499.

If 3499 or 4500 the rounding off would not have been 4000

So least number is 3500 and greatest number is 4499.