What is the effect on time taken to finish a job if 5 men work instead of 10?

When considering the number of workers and the time taken to complete a job, it's important to understand the relationship between the two. If 10 men can complete a job in a certain amount of time, having only 5 men will mean that the job will take them longer to finish.

This is because the total work required to complete the job remains constant, but with fewer workers, the workload is divided among fewer people, resulting in a longer completion time. In practical terms, if the initial group of 10 men can work together effectively to finish the job in a certain timeframe, halving the number of men to 5 would typically mean that the time taken to finish the job would approximately double, due to the increased amount of time each individual worker would need to compensate for the reduced manpower.

Thus, when 5 men take on the same task as 10 men, they have to work twice as long to complete the job. This relationship highlights the inverse relationship between the number of workers and the time taken to complete a fixed amount of work; fewer workers result in longer completion time, leading to the conclusion that the time effectively doubles with only half the manpower.