Question

A tortoise challenged a hare to a 100-meter race on a track. The tortoise negotiated a 60-meter head start with the hare. When they passed their respective starting points the hare was running at a constant speed of 3.6 meters per second and the tortoise was crawling at a speed of 0.7 meters per second. (They both maintained these speeds for the entire race.) Our goal is to determine who won the race. Take out a piece of paper and read the above problem statement again. In a couple of sentences, describe how you might determine who won the race. Construct a drawing to represent the 100-meter length of the track. Then place the tortoise and hare's starting points on the track. Define the variable t to represent the number of seconds since the start of the race.

Answer 1

Hare wins the race

Explanation:

Length of track = 100 m

Let t represent the number of seconds in completing the race.

Speed of tortoise = 0.7 m/s

Distance covered by tortoise in t seconds = Speed \times time = 0.7t

We are given that The tortoise negotiated a 60-meter head start with the hare.

So, Distance covered by tortoise in t seconds = 60+0.7t

Speed of hare = 3.6 m/s

Distance covered by hare in t seconds = 3.6 t

Now

3.6t = 100

`t=(100)/(3.6)`

t=27.77

60+0.7t=100

`t=(100-60)/(0.7)`

t=57.14

So, Hare took less time

So, Hare wins the race