A scooterist goes to a place of 20km/hr and return at a speed of 30mm/hr. Find the average speed in km/hr for the entire ?

1 Answer
Mar 6, 2018

We can do this in different ways. I like this one:

Explanation:

Since we don't know the distance we will call this D.

The time for the out trip is D/20 and the return trip will take D/30 (in hours)

The total time will be t=D/20+D/30=(3D)/60+(2D)/60=(5D)/60=D/12
for a distance of 2D

Average speed will be 2DdivD/12=2cancelDxx12/(cancelD)=24 \ "km/h".

Note:
Since this works for all distances (they cancel out in the end), you just could also have picked any convenient distance, like 60 \ "km":
Out 3 hours, home 2 hours, 120 \ "km" in 5 hours, same result.