Question

The height of a high rise building in New York city is 950 feet. A runner races to the top in 7 minutes 55 seconds. What is the runner's average speed in meters per second?
0.58 m/s
0.61 m/s
0.63 m/s
1.65 m/s

Answers

GPT-4o mini
To find the average speed of the runner in meters per second, we can follow these steps:

1. **Convert the height of the building from feet to meters**:
- 1 foot is approximately 0.3048 meters.
- Height in meters = 950 feet × 0.3048 meters/foot = 289.56 meters.

2. **Convert the time from minutes and seconds to seconds**:
- 7 minutes and 55 seconds = 7 × 60 seconds + 55 seconds = 420 seconds + 55 seconds = 475 seconds.

3. **Calculate the average speed**:
- Average speed = distance / time = 289.56 meters / 475 seconds.

Calculating that gives:

\[
\text{Average speed} = \frac{289.56 \text{ m}}{475 \text{ s}} \approx 0.609 \text{ m/s}
\]

Rounding to two decimal places, this is approximately 0.61 m/s.

Thus, the runner's average speed is **0.61 m/s**.