Jon Begins jogging at a steady 3 m/sec down the middle of lane one of a straight track. Laura starts even with him in the cneter of lane two but moves at 4 m.sec. At the instant they begin, Ellis is loacted 100 meters down the track in lane four, and is heading towards them in his at 6 m.sec. After how many seconds will the runners lie in a straight line?
a) Let t be the number of seconds the three have been running. Write expressions for the number of meters each has run after t seconds.
b) Consider the location of each runner as a point on a graph. What quantity might you use as the x-coordinate? What quantity might you use as the x-coordinate? What quantity might you use as the y-coordinate?
c) How can you tell if three points are on a line? Use this to solve the problem.