It would take 120 minutes to fill a swimming pool with water from 5 taps. How many minutes will it take to fill the pool of only 3 taps are used?
3/5 the taps, so 5/3 the time.
What do you mean? If I turn 5 taps on you will get more water come out than if I turn 3 taps on?
yes you will get more water in 5 taps than 3 taps
To solve this problem, 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 is filling the swimming pool, and the unit of time is minutes.
Let's assume that each tap has the same work rate. So, if it takes 120 minutes to fill the pool with 5 taps, we can say that each tap fills 1/120th of the pool per minute.
Now, we want to find out how many minutes it will take to fill the pool if only 3 taps are used.
Since each tap fills 1/120th of the pool per minute, three taps together will fill 3 times that amount, which is 3/120th or 1/40th of the pool per minute.
To find out how many minutes it will take to fill the pool with 3 taps, we can take the reciprocal of 1/40th. The reciprocal of a fraction is found by swapping the numerator and the denominator. So, the reciprocal of 1/40th is 40/1.
Therefore, it will take 40 minutes to fill the pool if only 3 taps are used.
If
5 taps ----> 120 mins
3 taps -----> X mins
Then
X = [3*120]/(5)
X = 72 mins