Question

The following is an idealized equation representing the world population of Leatherback turtles, where t represents time in years since 1970.

f(t) = 50,000(.92)^t

How would you determine the population in the year 2000?

Is this a growth or a decay function?

How can you tell a growth or decay function just by looking at it?

Answer 1

In this case t = 2000 - 1970 = 30
so population in 2000 = 50,000 * (0.92)^30 = 4098 Asawer
This is a function of decay.

The function is decay because the number in the parentheses is < 1.