Question

The amount of time it takes mail carriers to deliver the mail in one town is inversely proportional to the number of mail carriers delivering the mail. With 8 mail carriers, it takes 6 hours to deliver the town's mail. What is the number of hours it would take 4 mail carriers to deliver the town's mail?

Answer 1

The time it takes for mail carriers to deliver the mail in the town has an inverse proportionality relationship to the number of carriers. With 8 carriers, it takes 6 hours, so with 4 carriers, it would take 12 hours to deliver the mail.

Step-by-step explanation:

The numbers in this question suggest an inverse proportionality scenario, we can establish this relationship with the formula xy = k, where k is a constant. With 8 mail carriers, it takes 6 hours to deliver the town's mail. Based on the inverse variation formula, we have 8 (carriers) * 6 (hours) = k so k = 48.

So, for the scenario with 4 mail carriers, we can write this as 4 (carriers) * x (hours) = 48, where we aim to solve for x. Solving for x, we get x = 48 / 4 = 12 hours. So, it would take 12 hours for 4 mail carriers to deliver the town's mail.

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