You are standing 100 meters away from your car when an alligator appears 20 meters away from you on the opposite side. You start to run with a speed of 5 m/s while the alligator's speed is 8 m/s towards you.

Will you reach your car before the alligator reaches you? Why?

Pretty sure you'd be a dead man. Let's break this up shall we?
So if you're running @ 5 m/s at a distance of 100m, then it'll take you 20 seconds to get to the car. This is because distance/velocity=time. ••••• Now the Alligator is another story. He has to run 20m+100m and he runs @ 8 m/s. Using the same equation again, d/v= time, you will find that it takes the alligator 15 seconds to get to your car. So if it takes 20 secs for you to get to safety, and 15 secs for the alligator to maul you, if say you would die.

Answered by taylortvo | 2024-06-10

Given the speeds and distances involved, the alligator will reach you in 15 seconds, which is sooner than the 20 seconds it will take you to reach the car, so you will not reach your car before the alligator reaches you. This illustrates the importance of understanding speeds and reaction times in safety situations.

The question is asking whether you will reach your car before the alligator reaches you, given the respective speeds and distances involved. To determine this, we need to calculate the time it takes for both you and the alligator to cover the distances given. You are 100 meters away from the car and running at 5 m/s, and the alligator is 20 meters away from you, chasing you at 8 m/s.
Likewise, we need time (t) to find out who will reach the target first. The time taken by you to reach the car is the distance to the car divided by the speed: t = 100 meters / 5 m/s = 20 seconds. For the alligator, the distance it has to cover to get to you is the initial 20 meters plus the 100 meters you are away from the car, so a total of 120 meters. Therefore, the time taken by the alligator is t = 120 meters / 8 m/s = 15 seconds.
Since the alligator takes less time (15 seconds) to reach you than you take to reach the car (20 seconds), you will not be able to reach your car before the alligator reaches you. Understanding the speed and time relationship is crucial in predicting outcomes in a given scenario.
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Answered by JohnRogerStephens | 2024-06-25

You will not reach your car before the alligator catches you. You take 20 seconds to reach the car, while the alligator takes only 15 seconds. Therefore, the alligator will reach you first.
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Answered by taylortvo | 2024-09-30