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Related rates

Problem 3.220 · medium

A stone dropped in a pond makes a circular ripple whose radius grows at 3 ft/s. How fast is the area inside the ripple growing when the radius is 2 ft?
  1. The area of a circle is A = πr².
  2. \[ \frac{d}{d r} \pi r^{2} = 2 \pi r \]
    dA/dt = 2πr dr/dt.✓ Proved
  3. \[ \left. 6 \pi r \right|_{\substack{ r=2 }} = 12 \pi \]
    At r = 2 with dr/dt = 3.✓ Proved
Answer \( 12 \pi \ \text{ft²/s} \approx 37.7\ \text{ft²/s} \)

Lines: 2 proved, 1 not checked. The answer was also checked a second way, without looking at the solution. The reviewers disagree about how one step is explained; every verdict is in the receipt.

The full receipt
LineStatusChecked byDetail
1Not checked—a sentence; read, not computed
2✓ Provedsympy 1.14.0simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0
3✓ Provedsympy 1.14.0simplify(lhs - rhs) reduced to 0
answer, a second way✓ Checked independentlysympy 1.14.0 + mpmath 1.3.0the situation was stepped forward and back by a microsecond and the quantity differenced numerically

Reviewers

  • gpt-oss:20b: pass
  • qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) — The solution incorrectly computes the derivative with respect to r instead of t, and the substitution step is algebraically inconsistent with the previous line (Subs(6*pi*r...) implies a derivative of 6*pi*r was used, not 2*pi*r).
Every verdict on record (4)
  • qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-09-27 — The solution incorrectly computes the derivative with respect to r instead of t, and the substitution step is algebraically inconsistent with the previous line (Subs(6*pi*r...) implies a derivative of 6*pi*r was used, not 2*pi*r).
  • gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-09-27
  • qwen3.6:27b-mlx: fail (error) 2026-09-27 — The solution incorrectly computes the derivative of the area with respect to radius (dA/dr) instead of time (dA/dt). It fails to apply the chain rule properly, treating dr/dt as a constant multiplier inside the differentiation step rather than relating dA/dt to dr/dt.
  • gpt-oss:20b: pass 2026-09-27

Proved: SymPy reduced the difference between the two sides to zero. Checked independently: a separate method, named above, confirmed it. Checked numerically: the two sides agree at every sampled point, which is evidence, not proof. Reviewed: a model or a person read it; that is all a sentence can have. Solution by generator:structured/related_rates, checked 2026-09-27 with SymPy 1.14.0.