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You start off with 100 E. coli cells known to divide every 20 minutes. Based on this information and using formulas for exponential growth (Nt = No2n), growth constant (k = n/t (gen/hr), and generation time (g = t/n or 1/g (hr/gen), calculate the following: a. From the given information, what is the generation time? Remember it’s the length of time (in hours) for the population to double.

User Brettw
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1 Answer

1 vote

Answer:

21 minutes or 0.35 hours

Step-by-step explanation:

The formula for exponential population growth is


A = A_0* e^(kt)\\

where


A_0 = initial population of E.coli i.e 100

k is the rate of population growth i.e 2 as the population doubles

t is the time period i.e 20 minutes

Substituting the given values in above equation, we get -


A = 100 * e^{2 * (20)/(60) }\\\\A = 195

Generation time


G = (t)/(3.3 * log (194)/(100) ) \\G = (t)/(0.949) \\G= 21 minutes

or 0.35 hours

User Bastyon
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