Question

Does anybody know how to do time with exponential decay

Answer 1

From the message you sent me:

when you breathe normally, about 12 % of the air of your lungs is replaced with each breath. how much of the original 500 ml remains after 50 breaths

If you think of number of breaths that you take as a time measurement, you can model the amount of air from the first breath you take left in your lungs with the recursive function


`b_n=0.12* b_(n-1)`

Why does this work? Initially, you start with 500 mL of air that you breathe in, so
`b_1=500\text{ mL}`. After the second breath, you have 12% of the original air left in your lungs, or
`b_2=0.12*b_1=0.12*500=60\text{ mL}`. After the third breath, you have
`b_3=0.12*b_2=0.12*60=7.2\text{ mL}`, and so on.

You can find the amount of original air left in your lungs after
`n` breaths by solving for
`b_n` explicitly. This isn't too hard:


`b_n=0.12b_(n-1)=0.12(0.12b_(n-2))=0.12^2b_(n-2)=0.12(0.12b_(n-3))=0.12^3b_(n-3)=\cdots`

and so on. The pattern is such that you arrive at


`b_n=0.12^(n-1)b_1`

and so the amount of air remaining after
`50` breaths is


`b_(50)=0.12^(50-1)b_1=0.12^(49)*500\approx3.7918*10^(-43)`

which is a very small number close to zero.