Two students at Weston College, Gabby and Maggie, leave the library at the same time and walk along the same path. Gabby walks at a speed of 5 kilometers per hour and Maggie walks 4 kilometers per hour. How long will it be before the two are separated by a distance of 1 kilometer?

Question

If necessary, round your answer to the nearest minute.
hour

Answer 1

To find out how long it will take for Gabby and Maggie to be separated by a distance of 1 kilometer, we can first calculate their relative speed.

Gabby's speed: 5 km/h
Maggie's speed: 4 km/h

The difference in their speeds will give us the rate at which the distance between them increases:

\[ \text{Relative speed} = \text{Gabby's speed} - \text{Maggie's speed} = 5 , \text{km/h} - 4 , \text{km/h} = 1 , \text{km/h} \]

Now, we want to find out how long it takes for them to be 1 kilometer apart at this relative speed:

\[ \text{Time} = \frac{\text{Distance}}{\text{Speed}} = \frac{1 , \text{km}}{1 , \text{km/h}} = 1 , \text{hour} \]

Therefore, it will take 1 hour for Gabby and Maggie to be separated by a distance of 1 kilometer.

If you want to convert this to minutes:

\[ 1 , \text{hour} = 60 , \text{minutes} \]

So, the answer is 60 minutes or 1 hour.