Solve the following word problem. A fish is swimming at - 10.8 meters, or 10.8 meters below sea level. Every 2 minutes it descends another 1.5 meters. How long will it take for the fish to reach a depth of -37.8 meters?
To find out how long it will take for the fish to reach a depth of -37.8 meters, we need to determine how many times it will descend by 1.5 meters before reaching that depth.
The fish starts at -10.8 meters and descends by 1.5 meters every 2 minutes.
To find the number of times it will descend by 1.5 meters, we can subtract the initial depth (-10.8 meters) from the target depth (-37.8 meters):
-37.8 meters - (-10.8 meters) = -37.8 meters + 10.8 meters = -27 meters
So, the fish needs to descend by 27 meters.
Since it descends by 1.5 meters every 2 minutes, we can find the number of 1.5-meter descents:
27 meters / 1.5 meters = 18 descents
Therefore, it will take the fish 18 * 2 = <<18*2=36>>36 minutes to reach a depth of -37.8 meters.