Question

In a company, it takes 4 employees 4 days to complete a task. It would take 2 employees 8 days to complete the same task. Which function can be used to represent e, the number of employees working on the task, and d, the number of days it takes them to complete that task?

Answer 1

the number of days d varies inversely as the number of employees e:-

e = k /d where k is some constant

Plugging in the given values:-

4 = k / 4 givng k = 16

2 = k/8 giving k = 16

so the function is e = 16/d

Answer 2

e=16/d

The first two examples gave us 16. 4 employees at 4 days and 2 employees at 8 days. Both are 16.

Employees needed is equal to 16 divided by the number of days
e=16/d