sue can shovel snow from her driveway in 60 minutes. Tom can do the same job in 35 minutes. how long would it take Sue and Tom to shovel the driveway if they work together?
sue's rate = 1/60 (driveways/minute)
Tom's rate = 1/35 (driveways/minute)
combined rate = 1/60+1/35 = 19/420 (driveways/minute)
time at combined rate = driveway/( (19/420) (driveways/minute) )
= 420/19 minutes
= 22.1 minutes
To find out how long it would take Sue and Tom to shovel the driveway together, we can use the concept of work rates. The work rate is the amount of work done per unit of time. In this case, the work rate is measured in terms of the fraction of driveway shovelled per minute.
Let's calculate their individual work rates first:
Sue's work rate = 1 driveway / 60 minutes
Tom's work rate = 1 driveway / 35 minutes
To calculate the work rate when they work together, we need to add their individual work rates:
Combined work rate = Sue's work rate + Tom's work rate
Therefore, the combined work rate is:
Combined work rate = 1/60 + 1/35
Now we can find out how long it would take them to shovel the driveway by calculating the reciprocal of their combined work rate:
Time taken = 1 / (Combined work rate)
Time taken = 1 / (1/60 + 1/35)
Simplifying further,
Time taken = 1 / (35/2100 + 60/2100)
Time taken = 1 / (95/2100)
Time taken = 2100 / 95
Using division, we can find:
Time taken ≈ 22.11 minutes
Therefore, Sue and Tom would take approximately 22.11 minutes to shovel the driveway if they work together.