Two fishing boats depart a harbor at the same time, one traveling east, the other south. the eastbound boat travels at a speed 1 mi/h faster than the southbound boat. after 5 h the boats are 25 mi apart. find the speed of the southbound boat.
they are travelling at right angles to each other. At any given instant they form a right triangle with their starting point South bound = x [mi/h] East bound = x+1 [mi/h] after five hours they will be d=5x and d=5(x+1) miles away from the starting point (5x)^2+(5(x+1))^2=625 25x^2+(5x+5)^2=625 25x^2+25x^2+50x+25=625 50x^2+50x-600=0 x^2+ x - 12=0 (x+4)(x-3)=0 take the postive value x= 3 mph the speed of south bound 4mph east bound
