You need to make a fence that boarders a cliff. It must be rectangular in shape and you are asked to use the cliff as one of the sides (so only 3 sides of fencing). The fencing costs $5 per foot. If the area of the rectangular enclosure must be 10,000 square feet, what must the dimensions be in order to minimize the cost?
You need to make a fence that boarders a cliff. It must be rectangular in shape and you are asked to use the cliff as one of the sides (so only 3 sides of fencing). The fencing costs $5 per foot. If the area of the rectangular enclosure must be 10,000 square feet, what must the dimensions be in order to minimize the cost?
Calculus: Early Transcendentals
8th Edition
ISBN:9781285741550
Author:James Stewart
Publisher:James Stewart
Chapter1: Functions And Models
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1RCC: (a) What is a function? What are its domain and range? (b) What is the graph of a function? (c) How...
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
Transcribed Image Text:**Problem Statement:**
You need to make a fence that borders a cliff. It must be rectangular in shape and you are asked to use the cliff as one of the sides (so only 3 sides of fencing). The fencing costs $5 per foot. If the area of the rectangular enclosure must be 10,000 square feet, what must the dimensions be in order to minimize the cost?
**Explanation:**
In this problem, we want to find the dimensions of the rectangle with one side as the cliff. The enclosure consists of a width and two lengths. To minimize the cost, we need to minimize the total length of fencing used, considering the cost per foot.
**Approach to Solution:**
1. **Define Variables:**
- Let \( x \) be the width (the side perpendicular to the cliff).
- Let \( y \) be the length (parallel to the cliff).
2. **Area Constraint:**
- The area of the rectangle is given by \( x \times y = 10,000 \).
3. **Cost Function:**
- The cost to fence the three sides is proportional to their length: \( C = 5 \times (2x + y) \).
- Substitute \( y \) from the area constraint: \( y = \frac{10,000}{x} \).
- Thus, the cost function becomes: \( C(x) = 5 \times (2x + \frac{10,000}{x}) \).
4. **Optimization:**
- Differentiate \( C(x) \) to find the critical points, then solve for \( x \).
- Use these critical points to determine the dimension \( x \) that minimizes the fencing cost and compute \( y \) accordingly.
Expert Solution

Step 1
Let x feet be the length of the side of the rectangle that is parallel to the cliff and y feet be the length of the other side.
Area of the rectangular enclosure is 10,000 square feet.
Step 2
Cost of fencing is
Now, differentiate both sides with respect to x.
Now, we solve the equation
Step by step
Solved in 4 steps
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