Velociraptor Math
? Maplesoft, a division of Waterloo Maple Inc., 2009
Question 1
|
The velociraptor spots you 40 meters away and attacks, accelerating at 4 up to its top speed of 25 . When it spots you, you begin to flee, quickly reaching your top speed of 6 . How far can you get before you?re caught and devoured?
|
|
Solution:
This is a fairly trivial problem. The speed of the velociraptor can be given by:
We can use this to express the location of the raptor, assuming 
.
= 
The location of the person is given by:
= 
Hence the velociraptor meets his lunch at the following time (when 
):
 |
(1.1) |
So we see that at 6.217 seconds, the raptor will catch you. Incidentally, you will run an astonishing 
= 
before you are caught.
References
This problem was taken from the webcomic xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/135/. The Maple solution is based on Huaizhi Chen's solution which can be found here.
Legal Notice: ? Maplesoft, a division of Waterloo Maple Inc. 2009. Maplesoft and Maple are trademarks of Waterloo Maple Inc. This application may contain errors and Maplesoft is not liable for any damages resulting from the use of this material. This application is intended for non-commercial, non-profit use only. Contact Maplesoft for permission if you wish to use this application in for-profit activities.
