A police officer is trying to catch a fleeing criminal. The criminal is 20 feet away from the cop, r

Discussion in 'Calculator Requests' started by math_celebrity, Oct 29, 2020.

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  1. math_celebrity

    math_celebrity Administrator Staff Member

    A police officer is trying to catch a fleeing criminal. The criminal is 20 feet away from the cop, running at a rate of 5 feet per second. The cop is running at a rate of 6.5 feet per second. How many seconds will it take for the police officer to catch the criminal?

    Distance = Rate * Time

    Criminal:
    5t + 20

    Cop:
    6.5t

    We want to know when their distances are the same (cop catches criminal). So we set the equations equal to each other:
    5t + 20 = 6.5t

    To solve this equation, we type it in our search engine and we get:
    t = 13.333 seconds
     

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