Q9. Two water taps together can fill a tank in hours. The tap of larger diameter takes 10 hours less than the smaller one to fill the tank separately. Find the time in which each tap can separately fill the tank.
Let the time taken by the smaller pipe to fill the tank be
Then, the time taken by the larger pipe will be: .
The fraction of the tank filled by a smaller pipe in 1 hour:
The fraction of the tank filled by the larger pipe in 1 hour.
Given that two water taps together can fill a tank in hours.
Therefore,
Making it a quadratic equation:
Hence the roots are
As the time taken cannot be negative:
Therefore, time taken individually by the smaller pipe and the larger pipe will be and hours respectively.