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A rabbit challenged a turtle to a racing match and the turtle accepted it. The rabbit knows its advantages so he let the turtle go with a 100 meters head start, the rabbit is 10 times faster than the turtle.Can the rabbit catch up? Who will win? Turtle = 1 meter per second Rabbit = 10 meters per second

Carlo Cantada
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    If the track is 101m long, the rabbit loses. If the track is 101km long, the rabbit wins. –  Jun 10 '15 at 14:08
  • Thank you I really apprecriate that. – Carlo Cantada Jun 10 '15 at 14:09
  • Strictly speaking, that wasn't an answer. I was just observing that the problem is missing the length of the track. –  Jun 10 '15 at 14:10
  • "Can the rabbit catch up" sounds like an invitation to a paradox; see http://math.stackexchange.com/q/142932/139123 – David K Jun 10 '15 at 14:11
  • Our proffesor didn't even gave us how long the track is, he said we can answer this wihout a length of the track. – Carlo Cantada Jun 10 '15 at 14:13
  • Then based on what you have here, you should be able to explain clearly to your professor why you don't have enough information. Maybe he didn't state the problem as intended, maybe the fact that it is not soluble is the desired answer. – Ross Millikan Jun 10 '15 at 14:29
  • @G.Sassatelli - very nice illustration, esp the use of 101m and 101km :) – Hypergeometricx Jun 11 '15 at 06:48

1 Answers1

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After $x$ seconds, the turtle will have gone $x+100$ meters, and the hare will have gone $10x$ meters.

From this, you can figure out when they will have travelled the same distance. The turtle will be ahead before then, and the hare will be ahead after then.

The result depends on the length of the race, which you did not state.

marty cohen
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