Recovering from a long lunch
- Author:
- Judah L Schwartz
BLUE and her brother RED set out for college 400 miles away at the same time. They each intend to get there in 10 hours. BLUE is riding her motor scooter. She travels at a steady 40 mi/hr and gets to school 10 hours later. RED sets out in his car. After 4 hours he stops for a long lunch at a cafe which is exactly halfway between home and school. If he spends 4 hours over lunch and a nap can he make it to school on time?
You can explore the situation by dragging the large BLACK dots. You can watch an animation of the cars' motion by clicking in the lower left hand corner of the screen.
Write and solve equations that describe the distances traveled by BLUE and RED as functions of time.
CHALLENGE: Make up a similar problem. Are there any circumstances under which RED cannot get to college at the same time BLUE does?