Dre and Ned both work for a botanical garden.The botanical garden is adding a number of floral designs around?

Question

The botanical garden is adding a number of floral designs around its grounds. Dre, who has more experience, can plant the flowers and make the design by herself in 3 hours. it take Ned 5 hours working by himself to make the same design. If Dre and Ned are assigned to work together, how long will it take to make the design?

Answer 1

This is not really a question about botany at all, but rather a math problem that must be solved using rates. Dre plants at a rate of (1 design) / (3 hours) and Ned plants at a rate of (1 design) / (5 hours). If they work together, their combined rate is 1/3 + 1/5 = 8/15 = 0.5333 design/hr, so it takes 0.53 hours, which is 32 minutes.

Answer 2

The theoretical answer is around a half hour. But sometimes there is synergy and the more experience worker can tell the less experienced worker how to do his job more efficiently. Thus if there is synergy the job could be done a lot quicker.

However in some cases when two people are doing a job one of the worker may goof off and even sabotage the job causing the job to take longer.

Thus 8/15 of an hour is a rough approximation and the time required to finish the job may vary. Interestingly enough since they both did the job before they may with the experience may even finish the job faster than when they did the job previously. Thus not only is this question mathematical it is also philosophical and of practical experience.

Answer 3

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