Question: A man launches his boat from a point A on a bank of a straight river,

5km wide, and wants to reach point B, 5km downstream on the opposite bank as quickly
as possible. He could row his boat directly across the river to point C and then run to B,
or he could row directly to B, or he could row to some point D between C and B and then
run to B. If he can row 6km/h and run 10km/h where should he land to reach B as soon as
possible?

Solution:

Step 1: Interpret the problem

If we let x be the distance from C to D, then the running distance from D to B is√5 − x and
the Pythagorean Theorem gives the rowing distance from point A to point D as x2 + 25.

Step 2: Find an Equation

√
The time it will take him to row across the lake is x2 + 25/6 and the running time is
(5 − x)/10 so the total time as a function of x is
√
x2 + 25 5 − x
T (x) = +
6 10

Step 3: Feasible Domain

1
 The domain of this function T is [0, 5].

Step 4: Maximize your equation

We find the critical points through the derivative

x −1
T 0 (x) = √ +
2
6 x + 25 10
Setting this equal to 0 we find that
x −1 x 1
√ + = 0 ⇒ √ =
2
6 x + 25 10 2
6 x + 25 10

√
5x = 3 x2 + 25 ⇒ 25x2 = 9(x2 + 25)

15
16x2 = 9(25) ⇒ x =
4

15
The only critical number is x = 4
so using the closed interval method we evaluate
  √
4 15 7 5 2
T (0) = T = T (5) =
3 4 6 6

To compare these we see that

 2
2 50 49 15
T (5) = > = T
36 36 4
So the minimum occurs at
 
15 7
T =
4 6