If the lake is 60 miles away, and Rene is driving at 40 miles per hour, how long will it take to get to the lake

Question

I need help figuring out this problem. is it an equation or is it not an equation ? how do you solve this ? please help me 

Answer 1

First you look at what information was given to us.

We're told that the lake is 60 miles away. In other words, the distance we travel is 60 miles.

Next we're told that Rene is traveling at 40 miles/hour. This is known as a velocity.

We are asked to find the time it took to do this. So we look for a formula using distance, velocity, and time.

velocity * time = distance

40 (miles / hour) * t (hours) = 60 (miles)

Take note how the units work. miles/hour * hours = miles. This is an indication that a formula we picked is correct.

Now, looking at our formula (and neglecting units at this point)

40t = 60
t = 60/40
t = 1.5 hours

 

 

 

Another way to look at this problem is that Rene can travel 40 miles in one hour. How long will it take to travel 60 miles? We can set up a relation

40/1 = 60/t ((we travel 40 miles in one hour. We travel 60 miles in t hours))

 

Cross multiplying, we get that

 

40t =60 , the same as we got from the other method.

 

For the sake of checking:

40mph * 1.5 hours = 60 miles.