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Challenge: suppose you know the initial dose of a drug is 500 mg, and 3 hours later, there's 325 mg left,

but you don't know the base multiplier (b). Use this information in the equation y = a-b to solve for b.
First substitute ina= 500, and useT=3 with y= 325.
The equation will look like:
Now solve for b: first divide both sides by 500, and you get:
The next challenge is how to undo a third power--"uncube it." If your calculator has a cube root (look for
.--it may be under the MATH menu) you can use it to undo the third power:
V0.65
If your calculator doesn't have that key, you can undo the third power by raising both sides of the equation
1
to a power:
(0.65)) – (6)(),
1
make sure that the is entered in parentheses (1/3)
and you should get: 0.866239.. = b
So that the equation for this problem is y = 500(0.866)

User Yoshitaka
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1 Answer

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Final answer:

In this high school mathematics question, we solve for the base multiplier (b) in an equation that involves the initial dose and amount of a drug left after a certain time. The value of b is approximately 0.866.


Step-by-step explanation:

In this question, we are given information about the initial dose of a drug and the amount left after a certain period of time. We need to solve for the base multiplier (b) in the equation y = a-b. Given that a = 500, T = 3, and y = 325, we can substitute these values into the equation. By dividing both sides of the equation by 500 and undoing the third power of b, we find that b ≈ 0.866.


Learn more about Solving equations with unknown variables

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