SOLUTION: Eighty people are trapped in a ski lodge. They have enough food to last eight days. It takes five days to reach help (and five days for help to get back to the lodge). What is t

SOLUTION: Eighty people are trapped in a ski lodge. They have enough food to last eight days. It takes five days to reach help (and five days for help to get back to the lodge). What is t

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Question 334189: Eighty people are trapped in a ski lodge. They have enough food to last eight days. It takes five days to reach help (and five days for help to get back to the lodge). What is the fewest number of people to send for help (with sufficient food) so that those staying behind will be rescued before food runs out?
Answer by solver91311(24713) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

The trick to this one is to realize that the group of people who trek out to look for help will only need 5 days food (presumably there will be unlimited food for them once they get reach help in 5 days) while the group of people who remain at the lodge will need 10 days food, the 5 days it takes the other group to get out and the 5 days it takes the rescuers to return to the lodge.

If you consider one food unit to be sufficient food to feed one person for 1 day, then there must be 80 times 8 = 640 food units available.

Let

represent the number of people who leave to get help. Then

must be the number of people who remain at the lodge.

So

Just solve for

John

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

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