Question

Bob is a steady but absentminded paddler. He begins his canoe trip canoeing upstream. After 1.5 miles, his hat falls into the river and begins floating down stream, but Bob doesn't even notice. Twenty minutes later he reaches his destination and turns around, continuing his same steady paddling in the downstream direction. He reaches his starting point at the same time his hat does, grabs his hat, and pulls his canoe out of the water. How fast is the river flowing?

Answer 1

4.5 mph

Explanation:

We are expected to solve for Bob's speed

Given data

distance covered = 1.5 mile

time taken = 20 minutes to hours = 0.33hours

We know that the expression for speed is given by

speed= distance covered/time taken

substituting our given values we have

speed= 1.5/0.33

speed=4.5 mph

So Bob's speed is 4.5 miles per hour