Question

Can anyone help? I feel like i'm solving this wrong somehow

There are more than 1/4 million species of beetle. Assume the average length of a beetle is 1 cm and the average walking speed is 10 cm per second. These beetles walk up a gang-plank that is 5 meters long onto an ark. They do this in pairs, side by side, one male and one female from each species. The pairs of beetles are spaced so there is a gap of 7 cm between species. How many hours will it take for all 1/4 million species of beetles to embark onto the ark once the first pair starts up the gangplank?

Answer 1

Answer: Let's call the number of species N. The total length of the beetles walking up the gangplank will be N * (1 cm + 7 cm) = N * 8 cm.

The total time it will take for all the beetles to walk up the gangplank is the total length of the beetles divided by the walking speed of each beetle, which is (N * 8 cm) / (10 cm/s) = 0.8 * N seconds.

Finally, to convert this to hours, we divide by 3600 seconds per hour: (0.8 * N) / 3600 s/hr = 0.0002 * N hours.

So, for 1/4 million species, N = 1/4 * 10^6, it will take 0.0002 * N = 0.0002 * 1/4 * 10^6 = 25 hours.

Explanation: