if it takes 8 hours for 5 people to paint a house, how long if 12 people?
it takes 40 people-hours
40 people-hours / 12 people = ?
To find out how long it would take 12 people to paint a house, given that it takes 8 hours for 5 people to complete the task, we can use the concept of "person-hours".
Person-hours represent the total amount of work done by all the people involved in a certain period of time. In this case, if it takes 8 hours for 5 people to paint a house, we know that they collectively work for a total of 8 * 5 = 40 person-hours to complete the task.
Now, let's calculate how many person-hours are needed to paint the same house with 12 people. Since the amount of work remains constant, we can assume that the person-hours required will be the same. Therefore, it would take 12 people x t hours = 40 person-hours, where t represents the time it takes for 12 people to complete the task.
To find t, we can rearrange the equation: t = 40 person-hours / 12 people. Evaluating this equation gives us t ≈ 3.33 hours.
Therefore, it would take approximately 3.33 hours (or 3 hours and 20 minutes) for 12 people to paint the house.