SOLUTION: Jason and Michael are swimming the anchor leg of a freestyle relay race at a swim meeet. Jason's team is in the lead when it is his turn to swim. Michael enters the water 5 seconds

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Question 1124216: Jason and Michael are swimming the anchor leg of a freestyle relay race at a swim meeet. Jason's team is in the lead when it is his turn to swim. Michael enters the water 5 seconds after Jason. If Jason swims at 1.6m/s and Michael at 1.8m/s, for how long will Jason remain in the lead
Found 2 solutions by htmentor, addingup:
Answer by htmentor(1343) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Since Jason swims for 5 s at 1.6 m/s, he has a head start of 5 s * 1.6 m/s = 8 m
The difference of their speeds is 0.2 m/s.
Thus it takes 8/0.2 = 40 s for Michael to catch up

Answer by addingup(3677) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Jason 1.6 + 5 second advantage (Michael enters the water 5 sec after Jason)
1.6x + 1.6(5) = 1.8x multiply 1.6(5), then subtract 1.6 from both sides
8 = 0.2x invert:
0.2x = 8
x = 40
Jason will remain in the lead for 40 seconds