The height of the water in an above ground pool is 36 inches. The pool needs to be drained. As the water drains, the height of the water changes at a rate of -1/2 inch per minute. How many minutes will it take to drain the pool?

the answer   is 200

step-by-step explanation:

this is a problem about poisson probabilities.   i don't know if you've

already studied poisson distributions, or if you have a place to look

to read more about the subject.  

here's how you can see a poisson distribution coming.   when there are

a lot of events that may happen at any time (or any place), and when

you're counting how many of them happen at a particular time (or a

particular place), and each event is independent of the others, then

the result is a poisson distribution.   this is roughly true for the

chocolate chips; one chip being in a cookie has only a small effect on

the probability that another chip will be in the cookie.

once you know you have a poisson distribution, you know a lot.   there

is only one parameter to a poisson distribution, so if you know the

mean, you know everything.   the form of the distribution is

  probability of n chips = {[e^(-x)]*(x^n)} / (n! )

1/3 + 1/3 ≠ 2/6 because 1/3 alone = 2/6  

step by step explanation:

1/3 + 1/3 = 2/3       2/3=4/6

a

step-by-step explanation: