nickk wrote:
I haven't seen anyone post the formula so I'll go ahead and do it
1/T = 1/A + 1/B + .... 1/N
so if you have N entities which can do the same job in different amounts of time (denoted by A, B, ..., N above), the total amount of time it takes them to do the same tas working together is T.
I think you can solve all similar problems using this formula.
The above is correct and it's good to memorize cases for two and three entities (workers, pumps, ...):
General formula for calculating the time needed for two workers A and B working simultaneously to complete one job:Given that \(a\) and \(b\) are the respective individual times needed for \(A\) and \(B\) workers (pumps, ...) to complete the job, then time needed for \(A\) and \(B\) working simultaneously to complete the job equals to \(T_{(A&B)}=\frac{a*b}{a+b}\) hours, which is reciprocal of the sum of their respective rates (\(\frac{1}{a}+\frac{1}{b}=\frac{1}{t}\)).
General formula for calculating the time needed for three A, B and C workers working simultaneously to complete one job:\(T_{(A&B&C)}=\frac{a*b*c}{ab+ac+bc}\) hours.
Also for rate problems it's good to know that:
TIME to complete one job=Reciprocal of rate. eg 6 hours needed to complete one job (time) --> 1/6 of the job done in 1 hour (rate).
Time, rate and job in work problems are in the same relationship as time, speed (rate) and distance.
Time*Rate=Distance
Time*Rate=JobHope it helps.
Well, in some cases there are multiple persons doing the same job. e.g 5 men doing a job in 6 hours, while 9 women doing the same job in 6 hours & 10 boys doing the same job in 8 hours.