Friday, February 24, 2012

Trains and Bird

A train leaves City X for City Y at 15 mph. At the very same time, a train leaves City Y for City X at 20 mph on the same track. At the same moment, a bird leaves the City X train station and flies towards the City Y train station at 25 mph. When the bird reaches the train from City Y, it immediately reverses direction. It then continues to fly at the same speed towards the train from City X, when it reverses its direction again, and so forth. The bird continues to do this until the trains collide. How far would the bird have traveled in the meantime?

Variation 2:Find the Distance Travelled By the Prince
A Prince is going to a temple in a forest by his horse which travels at a speed of 60 km per hour. When he reached the entrance of the forest, he saw a girl who is going to the temple at a speed of 6 kms per hour. He visits the temple and returns to see the girl immediately. After he sees the girl, he goes again to the temple. He roams between the temple and girl, till the girl reaches the temple after one hour. How much distance the prince travelled by roaming between the girl and the temple?

2 comments:

  1. Let’s assume that the distance between City X and City Y is d miles. The trains are approaching each other at a relative speed of (20 + 15) = 35 mph. The sum of the distances covered by the trains when they collide is d (i.e. the distance between the cities). Since distance/speed gives us time, we know that the trains collide d/35 hours after they start.

    Since the speed of the bird is constant at 25 mph, we know that the bird would have covered

    25 * (d/35) miles = 5d/7 miles

    before the trains collide.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If we try to calculate how many no.of times, the prince has visited the temple or girl etc., the problem becomes complicated. The simple to way to solve the problem is, how long the prince has travelled, and from that calculate the distance. The prince has travelled as long as the girl was walking towards the temple. The girl took one hour to reach the temple. For that one hour, the prince was travelling. So, he travelled total 60 kms.

    ReplyDelete