Additional Related Rates Questions

1. A light is on the ground 40 ft from a building. A man 6 ft tall walks from the light towards
the building at 5 ft/sec. How rapidly is his shadow on the building shortening when he is
10 ft from the building?
2. A trough 10 ft long has as its ends isoceles triangles with altitude 2 ft and base 2 ft; their
vertices being on the bottom. If water is let into the trough at the rate of 3 ft3 /min, how
fast is the water level rising when the water is 1 ft deep?
3. Sand is issuing from a spout at the rate of 3 ft3 /min and falling on a conical pile whose
diameter at the base is always 3 times the height. At what rate is the height increasing
when the height is 4 ft?
4. A baseball diamond is 90 ft on a side. A player runs from 1st base to 2nd base at 25 ft/sec.
How fast is the player’s distance from 3rd base decreasing when the player is 30 ft from 1st
base? At that same instant, how fast is the player’s distance from home plate increasing?
5. A woman starts walking east at 5 ft/sec from a point A. Ten minutes later, a man starts
walking west at the rate of 5 ft/sec from a point B which is 3000 ft north of point A. How
fast are they separating 10 min after the man starts walking?
6. A point moves along the upper half of the curve y 2 = 2x + 1 in such a way that dx/dt = x3 .
Find dy/dt when x = 4.
7. A man 6 ft tall is walking away from a lamp post 24 ft high at the rate of 4 ft/sec. At
what rate is the end of his shadow moving away from the lamp post? At what rate is the
length of his shadow increasing?
8. A cylindrical can is being heated with its height increasing at the rate of .01 cm/min and
its diameter increasing at the rate of .005 cm/min. At what rate is the volume increasing
when the can has diameter 15 cm and height 20 cm?
9. An airplane at an altitude of 4400 ft is flying horizontally and directly away from an
observer. At the instant when the angle of elevation is 45◦ , the angle is decreasing at the
rate of 0.05 radians/sec. How fast is the airplane flying at that instant?
10. A lighthouse is three miles away from a straight shore. Its light beam makes three revolu-
tions per minute. How fast does the light beam move along a sea wall at a point two miles
down the coast?
11. A man walks along a sidewalk at the rate of 5 ft/sec. A searchlight on the ground 30 ft
from the sidewalk is kept trained on him. At what rate is the searchlight revolving when
the man is 20 ft away from the point on the sidewalk nearest the searchlight?
12. A ladder 10 ft long is leaning against a wall 8 ft high, with its upper end projecting over
the wall. If the lower end of the ladder slides away from the wall at the rate of 2 ft/sec,
find the rate at which the upper end of the ladder is approaching the ground when the
upper end reaches the top of the wall.
13. Ramsey Bolton’s army has formed a perfect circle around Jon Snow and they are advancing
toward him. These soldiers advance toward Jon Snow in such a way that the radius of this
circular formation decreases at a rate of 1.5 m/s. How quickly is the area of this circle
about Jon Snow changing when each of Ramsey’s soldiers is 25 meters away from him?

14. The volume of air in an inner tube is given by the formula V = π 2 Rr2 where R is the major
radius of the tube and r is the minor radius (as in the diagram below). An inner tube is
being inflated at a constant rate of 25 cm3 /s and as it inflates the rate of increase of the
major radius is twice that of the minor radius. What is the rate of increase of the minor
radius when R = 15 and r = 5?