Maria, an experienced shipping clerk, can fill a certain order in 7 hours. Jim, a new clerk, needs 9 hours to do the same job. Working together, how long will it take them to fill the order?
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To solve this problem, we need to determine how much work each person can do in one hour.
Maria can fill the order in 7 hours, so she can do 1/7 of the job in one hour.
Jim can fill the order in 9 hours, so he can do 1/9 of the job in one hour.
Working together, Maria and Jim can complete (1/7 + 1/9) of the job in one hour.
Multiplying the fractions to find a common denominator, we get:
(9/63 + 7/63) = 16/63
Therefore, Maria and Jim working together can complete 16/63 of the job in one hour. This means they can complete the entire job in 63/16 hours.
So, it will take them approximately 3.94 hours to fill the order if they work together.