Question

The population of an island decreases by 10% every decade. If there were 2,000,000 people on the island in 1950, how many people were there on the island in 2010?

Answer 1

The population of the island in 2010 would be approximately 1,062,883 people.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the population of the island in 2010, we need to calculate the number of decades from 1950 to 2010. We can do this by subtracting 1950 from 2010 and dividing the result by 10. So, we have (2010 - 1950) / 10 = 6 decades.

Next, we need to calculate the population after 6 decades of 10% decrease. To do this, we multiply the initial population by (1 - 0.1) raised to the power of the number of decades. The initial population is 2,000,000. So, the population after 6 decades is 2,000,000 * (0.9)^6 = 2,000,000 * 0.531441 = 1,062,882.8 (rounded to the nearest whole number).

Therefore, the estimated population in 2010 on the island would be approximately 1,062,883 people.