Question

Places A and B are 80 km apart from each other on a highway. A car starts from A and other from B at the same time. If they move in the same direction, they meet in 8 hours and if they move in opposite directions, they meet in 1 hour and 20 minutes. Find the speeds of the cars.

Answer 1

Let x and y be two cars starting from points A and B respectively.

Let the speed of the car X be x km/hr and that of the car Y be y km/hr.

Case I: When two cars move in the same directions:

Suppose two cars meet at point Q, then,

Distance travelled by car X = AQ

Distance travelled by car Y = BQ

It is given that two cars meet in 8 hours.

Distance travelled by car X in 8 hours =km

AQ=

Distance travelled by car Y in 8 hours =km

BQ =

Clearly AQ-BQ = AB

Both sides divided by 8, we get

Case II: When two cars move in opposite direction

Suppose two cars meet at point P, then,

Distance travelled by X car X=AP

Distance travelled by Y car Y=BP

In this case, two cars meet in 1 hour 20 minutes, we can write it as 1 hour or

hours that is hours.

Therefore,

Distance travelled by car y in hours = km

Distance travelled by car y in hours = km

...(ii)

By solving (i) and (ii) we get,

By substituting in equation (ii), we get

Hence, speed of car X is , speed of car Y is.