John and Jivanti together have 45 marbles. Both of them lost 5 marbles each, and the product of the number of marbles they now have is 124 . Form the quadratic equation we can find that John had 36 or 9 marbles.

Let John have x marbles, meaning Jivanti has 45-x marbles. After losing 5 each, they have x-5 and 40-x marbles, making the product (x-5)(40-x) = 124. Expanding gives x^2-45x+324=0, which factors as (x-36)(x-9)=0. This yields x=36 or x=9, confirming the statement is true.

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