Question

A salt water solution is cooled to −6° C. During an experiment, the mixture is heated so that its temperature rises at a steady rate. Write an equation to represent the temperature, y, after x minutes.

Answer 1

y = -6 + xt

where t is the rate of rising of the heated mixture per minute

Explanation:

From the question, we are lacking an important input. This is the value of the steady rise in temperature. In other terms, this is the rate at which the temperature of the mixture rises per minute.

Let this constant rate be t ° C. What this means is that it rises by this temperature in a minute.

in 1 minute, the temperature rise is t, in two minutes it will be 2t.

Then in x minutes, it will be xt

So adding the initial temperature of minus 6, the equation will be;

y = -6 + xt