Sign In
Express the round-trip air time in terms of the distance traveled and the groundspeed.
5000r+250 000/r(r+100)
We are told that a jet's groundspeed from Los Angeles (LA) to New York City (NYC) is 100 mi/h faster than the groundspeed from NYC to LA. If we let r be the jet's groundspeed from NYC to LA, we can write expressions to represent the jet's groundspeed for each situation.
From NYC to LA:& r
From LA to NYC:& r+100
We want to find the round-trip air time.To do so let's recall that the amount of time t spent traveling is the ratio of the distance d traveled to the corresponding speed r.
Time=Distance/Speed ⇔ t=d/r
| Distance (mi) | Groundspeed (mi/h) | Time (h) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| From NYC to LA | 2500 | r | t_1=2500/r |
| From LA to NYC | 2500 | r+100 | t_2=2500/r+100 |
We will add the expressions t_1 and t_2 to find the total amount of round-trip air time.
Notice that there are no common factors between the denominators. Therefore, the least common denominator is r(r+100). Let's use it!
a/b=a * ( r+100)/b * ( r+100)
a/b=a * r/b * r
Commutative Property of Multiplication
Since we now have like denominators, we can add the numerators.
Distribute 2500
Add fractions
Finally, we wrote an expression to describe the total round-trip air time. t=5000r+250 000/r(r+100)