Question about moving person and train

algebra-precalculus

Dear friends below you can see question in georgian language and i will translate it into english :(Nino is simple name of the women in georga)

so Nino is starting her move at the begining of the train(where driver is sitting) and in direction of train move starts her walking, She passed 45 meter when last wagon of the train passed her, if she would start walking in opposite direction of the train, then she will go 30 meter : question is what is the length of the train(speed of nino is same in both case)

let us suppose that length of the train is x, when nino passed 45 meter and train's last wagon passed her , it means that from the starting point train passed 45 meter till nino and remainder distance will be x-45, when nino passed 30 meter in opposite direction, it means that train distance form ninos last position to initial position is 30 and remaining length is x-30,i am a bit confused about equality,if we introduce speeds, then maybe train's speed and nino's speed is different and how we can measure time periods? can you help me please

Best Answer

Let say the train is traveling at $x$ meters per second and Nino walks at $y$ meters per second. Let us also say the train has length $L$ meters.

So first, we see that it takes Nino $45/y$ seconds before the train passes her. In that time the last wagon in the train has traveled $L+45$ meters. But using the speed of the train, we have that it has also traveled $45x/y$ meters. So we have

$$ 45\frac{x}{y} = L + 45.$$

Similarly in the second scenario, it takes $30/y$ seconds. But now the wagon has traveled $L-30$. So we have

$$ 30\frac{x}{y} = L - 30. $$

Using both we get

$$\frac{L+45}{45} = \frac{L-30}{30} \Rightarrow 15L = 2*45*30 \Rightarrow L = 180m.$$

Whats interesting about this is that you don't actually need the speeds!

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