During class today, we did the following problem: Two cars start moving from the same point.

One travels south at 60 mi/h and the other travels west at 25 mi/h. At what rate is the distance between the cars increasing two hours later? It seemed like the rate of change of the distance between the two cars did not depend on time in this problem. This is true! Heres one way to see this (using the setup from class). Lets let t be some arbitrary time. Then

dz x dx + y dt = dt dt z dx x dt + y dy dt = 2 + y2 x ( dx t) dx + ( dy t) dy dt dt dt = dt ( dx t)2 + ( dy t)2 dt dt = t( dx )2 + t( dy )2 dt dt t2 (( dx )2 + ( dy )2 ) dt dt = t(( dx )2 + ( dy )2 ) dt dt t ( dx )2 + ( dy )2 dt dt = ( dx )2 + ( dy )2 dt dt ( dx )2 + ( dy )2 dt dt = dx dt

2

dy

dy dt

So we see that it doesnt matter what time we pick - the distance between the two cars is changing at a constant rate. Be careful though - this is only true in this specic situation (two objects moving away from the same point at right angles and constant speeds). For example, in problem 3 on the class handout, we dont have two objects moving away from some point. We have Alice moving toward a point and Bob moving away. In this case, the rate of change of distance between Alice and Bob is not constant. At t = 100 s, dz = 1.26m/s, but at t = 50 s, dz = 3.41m/s. dt dt