250 seconds because it takes Mary 50 seconds to get around the track (300feet/6ft/sec) and it takes Peter 300 seconds to get around the track (300ft/1ft/sec) so if you subtract the fastest time from the shortest time you get the amount of time that Mary had to wait for Peter to get there, so after 250 sec (300sec-50sec) Peter, Paul, and Mary are reunited.
Answer: The only one of these that's an integer is 9.
Explanation: Let X be the integer. Then
X - 3/X = 26/3. Multiplying by 3X on both sides:
3X^2 - 9 = 26X
3X^2 - 26X - 9 = 0
X = (26 +/- SQRT(26^2-(4*(-27))))/6 = (26 +/- 28) / 6,
so the two solutions for X are 1/3 and 54/6 = 9.
Just substitute (-3) wherever you see x
(-3)^2 -2(-3) +3= 9+6+3=18 ( SORRY IF IM WRONG OR DID IT WRONG?? )
-2x+10^5 this should be I guess
