Question

John ran 3 miles in 25.2 minutes. The equation y = 8.5x, where x represents the number of miles and y represents the total time in minutes, represents this situation. What is the constant of proportionality? What does the constant of proportionality represent in the context of the problem?

Answer 1

Explanation:

It is given that,

John ran 3 miles in 25.2 minutes. We can find the speed of john as follows :

Speed = distance/time

v =
`\frac{3\ \text{miles}}{25.2\ \text{minutes}}=0.1190\ \text{miles/minutes}`

The equation y = 8.5x, where x represents the number of miles and y represents the total time in minutes, represents this situation. y is proportional to x with constant of proportionality 8.5.

Velocity of John is 0.1190 miles/minute. We can write it in the form of equation as :

y = 0.1190x

In this problem, the constant of proportionality is 0.1190.