The sum of two numbers is 62. The smaller number is 16 less than the larger number. What are the numbers?

23 and 39

23 + 39 = 62

39 - 23 = 16

39 and 23!

If we broke down the problem to 62=x+y (y being the smaller number) we can solve from there.

If y is the smaller number, then y = x-16

Therefore if we plug that back in we get 62=x+x-16 which simplifies to 62=2x-16.

Now we just solve for x which is the bigger number and we get 39. But we still have y which is 16 less so we subtract 16 from 39 to get 23.