SOLUTION: #13. A car traveling east at 45 miles per hour passes a certain intersection at 3 pm. Another car traveling north at 60 miles per hour passes the same intersection 25 minutes lat

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Question 146811: #13. A car traveling east at 45 miles per hour passes a certain intersection at 3 pm. Another car traveling north at 60 miles per hour passes the same intersection 25 minutes later. To the nearest minute, figure out when the cars are exactly 40 miles apart.
Answer by edjones(8007) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
When the 2nd car reaches the intersection the 1st car is 45*25/60=18.75 miles east of it.
We have a right triangle with the hypotenuse=40
d=st d=distance s=speed, t=time
Let a=60t
b=45t+18.75, c=40
a^2+b^2=c^2
60t^2+(45t+18.75)^2=40^2
3600t^2+2025t^2+1687.5t+351.56=1600
5625t^2+1687.5t-1248.44=0
t=.344414 hr
=21 min (approx)
.
Ed
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Solved by pluggable solver: SOLVE quadratic equation (work shown, graph etc)
Quadratic equation ax%5E2%2Bbx%2Bc=0 (in our case 5625x%5E2%2B1687.5x%2B-1248.44+=+0) has the following solutons:

x%5B12%5D+=+%28b%2B-sqrt%28+b%5E2-4ac+%29%29%2F2%5Ca

For these solutions to exist, the discriminant b%5E2-4ac should not be a negative number.

First, we need to compute the discriminant b%5E2-4ac: b%5E2-4ac=%281687.5%29%5E2-4%2A5625%2A-1248.44=30937556.25.

Discriminant d=30937556.25 is greater than zero. That means that there are two solutions: +x%5B12%5D+=+%28-1687.5%2B-sqrt%28+30937556.25+%29%29%2F2%5Ca.

x%5B1%5D+=+%28-%281687.5%29%2Bsqrt%28+30937556.25+%29%29%2F2%5C5625+=+0.344413681939415
x%5B2%5D+=+%28-%281687.5%29-sqrt%28+30937556.25+%29%29%2F2%5C5625+=+-0.644413681939415

Quadratic expression 5625x%5E2%2B1687.5x%2B-1248.44 can be factored:
5625x%5E2%2B1687.5x%2B-1248.44+=+%28x-0.344413681939415%29%2A%28x--0.644413681939415%29
Again, the answer is: 0.344413681939415, -0.644413681939415. Here's your graph:
graph%28+500%2C+500%2C+-10%2C+10%2C+-20%2C+20%2C+5625%2Ax%5E2%2B1687.5%2Ax%2B-1248.44+%29