Friday, 16 August 2013

algebra precalculus - When will these two trains meet each other



I cant seem to solve this problem.






A train leaves point A at 5 am and reaches point B at 9 am. Another train leaves point B at 7 am and reaches point A at 10:30 am.When will the two trains meet ? Ans 56 min





Here is where i get stuck.
I know that when the two trains meets the sum of their distances travelled will be equal to the total sum , here is what I know so far



Time traveled from A to B by Train 1 = 4 hours



Time traveled from B to A by Train 2 = 7/2 hours




Now if S=Total distance from A To B and t is the time they meet each other then



DistanceTotal=S=St4+2St7



Now is there any way i could get the value of S so that i could use it here. ??


Answer



We do not need S.



The speed of the train starting from A is S/4 while the speed of the train starting from B is S/(7/2)=2S/7.




Let the trains meet at time t where t is measured in measured in hours and is the time taken by the train from B when the two trains meet. Note that when train B is about to start train A would have already covered half its distance i.e. a distance of S/2.



Hence, the distance traveled by train A when they meet is S2+S×t4.



The distance traveled by train B when they meet is 2×S×t7.



Hence, we get that S=S2+S×t4+S×2×t7

We can cancel the S since S is non-zero to get 12=t4+2t7
Can you solve for t now? (Note that t is in hours. You need to multiply by 60 to get the answer in minutes.)


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