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You are walking on an escalator at the speed of 1 step/s and it takes 20 steps to reach the top. If you walk (on the escalator) at the speed of 2 steps/s, it takes a total of 30 steps to reach the top. If you walk at the speed of 3 steps/s, how many steps do you need to reach the top? If your speed tends to infinity steps/s, how many steps would you need?

This problem doesn't really make sense to me since it doesn't the steps do not seem to measure the distance, so I am not sure how to approach this. Would I need to find the percent of the increase in speed for the total steps?

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    You have 2 unknowns: the total length of the escalator in steps, measured when it's not moving, and the speed of the escalator measured as the number of steps per second that it moves forward. You are given two data points. Use those to set up two equations. Solve them to get values for the two unknowns, and use that to calculate the answer to the questions. – Jaap Scherphuis Nov 15 '22 at 16:42
  • The hints given by the comment of @JaapScherphuis is enough to find a method to determine the number of steps you have to take to reach to top when your speed is $3\dfrac{\text{steps}}{\text{sec}}$. To make things a bit easy, let me give you the answer. You have to climb $\pmb{36}$ steps. Finding the answer to the second question, is a bit tricky. You can either argue or use an equation to show that you need to take $\pmb{60}$ steps to reach the top. – YNK Nov 15 '22 at 17:28
  • Re-calculate the "it takes 20 steps to reach the top" and "it takes 30 steps to reach the top" statements as times (i.e. how many seconds do they imply for the given step/s rate) and that should make it easier to understand how to set up the rest of the problem. – DotCounter Nov 15 '22 at 17:28
  • Also, ask yourself "How many steps to reach the top if you walk at a rate of 0 steps/s?" to see how the "... it takes 20/30 steps to reach the top..." statements aren't measures of total distance but more like the distance walked-rather-than-"escalated". – DotCounter Nov 15 '22 at 17:53

1 Answers1

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Let's start by calling your walking speed $W$ (in steps/s) and the escalator's speed $E$ (in steps/s).

You are walking on an escalator at the speed of 1 step/s and it takes 20 steps to reach the top.

Dividing the walked distance by the walking speed gives you the total time of the first trip: $20\ s$. We don't know the numerical distance the escalator traveled, but we do know abstractly that it travelled $(E\ steps/s)\cdot (20\ s)$ while you were walking $(1\ steps/s)\cdot (20\ s)$.

If you walk (on the escalator) at the speed of 2 steps/s, it takes a total of 30 steps to reach the top.

Total time for the second trip: $15\ s$. Once again we only know abstractly that the distance the escalator traveled was $(E\ steps/s)\cdot (15\ s)$ while you were walking $(2\ steps/s)\cdot (15\ s)$.


Now what? We know the total distance can be written up something like: $$ D_{total}=W\cdot t + E \cdot t $$

And, furthermore, because the total distance should be the same for both trips we can cancel that out as:$$W_1\cdot t_1 + E \cdot t_1 = W_2\cdot t_2 + E \cdot t_2$$ which can be solved for $E$ since we know the values for everything else.

$$(1\ steps/s)\cdot (20\ s) + E \cdot (20\ s) = (2\ steps/s)\cdot (15\ s) + E \cdot (15\ s)$$ $$E \cdot (5\ s) = 10\ steps$$ $$E = 2\ steps/s $$

We can then plug this $E$ result back into either trip's total-distance equation to find $D$.

$$D_{total}=(1 \ steps/s)\cdot (20\ s) + (2 \ steps/s)\cdot (20\ s)$$ $$D_{total}=60 \ steps$$

From there, you'll have $E$ and $D$ solved, and setting up the $W=3\ steps/s$ problem should be easy:

$$60\ steps=(3\ steps/s)\cdot (t_3) + (2 \ steps/s)\cdot (t_3)$$ $$t_3=12\ s \rightarrow (3\ steps/s)\cdot (12\ s)=36\ steps$$

The infinite limit question might seem tricky at first, but really it's just what happens when $W>>E$ and you end up walking "all the steps" before the escalator gets anywhere. Which is just $D_{total}$!

DotCounter
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