NCERT Class 6 Mathematics textbook for Blind Students made Screen Readable by Professor T K Bansal.

In the above example, we found a rule to give the number of matchsticks required to make a pattern of L’s. The rule was :

Number of matchsticks required = 2n

Here, n is the number of L’s in the pattern, and n can take values 1, 2, 3, 4, .. .. .

Let us look at Table 1 once again. In the table, As the value of n goes on changing (increasing), the number of matchsticks required also goes on changing (increasing).

Here, n is an example of a variable. Its value is not fixed; it can take any value 1, 2, 3, 4, .. .. . We wrote the rule for the number of matchsticks required using the variable n.

The word ‘variable’ means something that can vary, i.e. change. The value of a variable is not fixed. It can take different values.

We shall look at another example of matchstick patterns to learn more about variables.