2 trains 50 miles toward each other bird? - Answers

This is a classic math problemThe question goes something like this:Two trains are travelling toward each other, one at 10 miles an hour travelling east, the other at 15 miles an hour travelling west, and they are 50 miles apart. A bird is flying at 45 miles an hour, that starts with the eastward train and also heads east, when it reaches the westward headed train it heads back to the other train until it reaches it, then turns around again until it reaches the first train and so on, until the point in time the trains meet. The question then asks, how far does the bird travel before the trains meet?The Answer:This is ultimately a trick question. All the different speeds and distances are there to confuse you, it is actually a question about time. You simply first find how long it takes the trains to meet. In this case, where they are 50 miles apart and moving together, their total speed to cover the 50 miles is 25 miles/hour. Thus it takes 50/25=2 hours for the trains to meet. We know the bird is travelling at 45 m/hr this entire time so we calculate 45x2=90 miles travelled during this time period. This is all the question is asking, we do not have to find out how many times the bird goes back and forth or anything else of that nature.