# A man on a hill [closed]

A man walks up a hill at 2mph, and back down the same way at 4mph. Upon returning to where he started, what is his average speed?

• I vote to close this question as math problem – manshu Mar 4 '16 at 11:14
• And the answer is 2.67 mph...if someone is wondering.. – manshu Mar 4 '16 at 11:19
• Answered, and voted to close. – ABcDexter Mar 4 '16 at 11:22
• So should this be posted on the Mathematics StackExchange? Seems a bit trivial for that site, given the complexity of some of the topics covered there. – Nuclear Hoagie Mar 4 '16 at 12:45
• It is not an intuitive result, so I would agree that this is still a puzzle. – Trenin Mar 4 '16 at 12:52

$\frac{8}{3}$ mph

Let's take the distance up (and down) the hill as $d$.

Then,

Time taken in reaching top of the hill is : $\frac{d}{2}$

And

Time taken in coming down the hill is : $\frac{d}{4}$

Thus, average speed is: $\frac{total \space distance}{total \space time \space taken}$.

which is:

$\frac{d+d}{\frac{d}{2}+\frac{d}{4}}$

On simplifying,

it gives $\frac{8}{3}$ or $2.67$ mph (approx).