• I GET THE JOKE,
  

• I BUST OUT LAUGHING WHEN I DO.

OK I AM SAVING THIS POST AND WILL CONTINUE TO REFER BACK TO IT UNTIL I A) GET THE JOKE AND B) BUST OUT LAUGHING WHEN I DO.

This will serve as my own personal assessment item!

Thanks!

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2005

This problem is a variant on an old math joke on how to tell a mathematician from a physicist.

Two trains one mile apart are heading toward each other with both moving at 30 mph. A bug leaves the front of the first engine and flies to the second engine at 60 mph, then flies back and so on. How far does the bug fly until the trains collide?

Answer: 1 mile.

How do we get that and how can we tell the mathematician from the physicist?

If the answer is nearly immediate, the person is a physicist.

If the answer is slow, the person is a mathematician.

Why?

The physicist notes that the trains have a relative speed of 60 MPH and are one mile apart. Therefore, they will hit in 1 minute. The bug is flying at 60 MPH. He has one minute of flight time before they hit. Therefore, he flies 1 mile.

The mathematician finds the limit of the infinite series of bug flights.

It is reputed that the great Gauss was asked the question and replied immediately, "One mile."

When asked how he got the answer he said, "Simple series."

-- MikeMcKeown - 08 Jun 2005

ItTakesChops

It takes chops to solve this when you're eleven:

Two cars leave simultaneously at 9 a.m. heading toward one another from different cities that are 210 km apart. The average speed of one car is 50 km/h while the other car averages 70 km/h. Come up with an appropriate question and answer it.

The 6 in the title stands for 6th grade.


+ + +


update: OK, I solved it.

But I couldn't think of a bar model.



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• Posted by: CatherineJohnson
• LogDate: Jun 06, 2005 @ 22:07