linear motion

helpneeded105:

Mr. Baldwin is walking to a friend's house. He walks 20.75 meters north, then realizes he walked too far. He turns around and walks 20.25 meters south. the entire walk takes him 12 minutes. What was his speed in meters per second?

how is the equation set up when using two distances?

Ok, first solve the equation d=rt for the rate (r) - r=d/t
Now, it doesn't matter if you have two different directions because you're only measuring speed, which doesn't rely on direction. So just add the 20.75 and 20.25 together.
20.25+20.75=41 meters
Now you need to solve for the time to make it into seconds instead of minutes, so just multiply 12 by 60 because there are 60 sec in 1 minute.
that gives you 720 seconds.
now just plug in the numbers.
r=d/t - 41m/720s

helpneeded105:

Mr. Baldwin is walking to a friend's house. He walks 20.75 meters north, then realizes he walked too far. He turns around and walks 20.25 meters south. the entire walk takes him 12 minutes. What was his speed in meters per second?

how is the equation set up when using two distances?

Speed is just the total distance divided by the total time. (So you have to add the distances together.) The direction is just given to confuse you.