SOLUTION: Working together Paul and Art can build a bridge for a landscaping project in 4 hours. Working alone it would take Paul 15 hours longer than Art. How long would it take Art to buil

Question 1117514: Working together Paul and Art can build a bridge for a landscaping project in 4 hours. Working alone it would take Paul 15 hours longer than Art. How long would it take Art to build the bridge working alone?
Answer by solver91311(24713) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Let

represent the number of hours Art would take to build the bridge. Then

is the number of hours that Paul would take by himself.

That means that Art could build

of the bridge by himself in one hour. Likewise Paul could build

of the bridge in one hour. Adding these two amounts is the fraction of the bridge that the two working together could build in one hour, namely,

. Hence:

Solve for

. Hint: The equation reduces to a quadratic for which there are two solutions. The fact that no one, including Art, can build something in a negative number of hours should guide you to choose the correct solution.

John

My calculator said it, I believe it, that settles it

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