math word problem

Question

Ezzat’s bathtub with a volume of 350,000cm3 leaks water through the floor at a constant rate of 3 ml per 2 seconds. Ezzat has buckets with a radius of 11 cm and a height of 18 cm. How many buckets will it take Ezzat to stop the leak, and how long will it take him.

Answer 1

Buckets won't stop the leak! But they will collect the water if they can be positioned in such a way that the leaked water is collected. Is it even possible to put a bucket immediately below the leak? This would require constant human monitoring, to switch to a new empty bucket each time one gets filled. Ezzat's time would be better spent in draining the bathtub in the normal way, thus reducing the severity of the leak. And then a plumber should be called.

 

Disregarding the impracticalities suggested, all you have to do is to compute the entire volumes (tub and bucket), and determine # of buckets (dividing the tub volume by bucket volume); a similar calculation could lead to the time required. Suitable attention must be paid to converting all volume to the same form of measurement, say, cubic cm.