Question

Mel and John leave Desert Point at the same time. Mel drives north and John drives east. Mel's average speed is 10 mph slower than John's. At the end of one hour they are 50 miles apart. Find the average speed of each driver.

Answer 1

since we are only covering 1 hour's worth of time, the speed in mph is the same as the distance they drove

letting x = John's speed, solve for x to get John's speed and solve for x - 10 to get Mel's speed

if you can recognize a pythagorean triple this question becomes a lot easier