(a)
well since they can lay 7 miles of track every day, the formula i make for the amount of track there is left to lay is:
\(l=196-Ld\)
where l is the length of track remaining, L is the length of track they can lay in one day and d is the number of days.
so we replace L for 7 and d for 17 and we get:
\(l=196-7\times17\)
whichworks out to be 77 miles of track remaining to lay.
(b)
well since we want them to have 0 length of track remaining, and they can lay 7 miles of track a day, we can work out d. let's give the formula a bash to get:
\(d=\frac{196-l}{L}\)
we then replace l with 0 and L with 7 and get:
\(d=\frac{196}{7}\)
which works out to be 28. so it will take 28 days or 4 weeks for the railroad crew to lay 196 miles of track.