Question

Suppose a single bacterium is placed in a flask that contains lots of food for bacteria. In this flask, each bacterium grows and divides in two every 30 minutes. Therefore, the number of bacteria in the population doubles every 30 minutes. How many bacteria do you think there will be by 5 hours after the single bacterium is placed in the flask? Give it your best guess.

Answer 1

After 5 hours, there will be 1024 bacteria in the flask.

Step-by-step explanation:

The number of bacteria in a population doubles every 30 minutes. So, to find out how many bacteria there will be by 5 hours, we need to calculate the number of doubling times in 5 hours. There are 10 doubling times in 5 hours (since there are 2 doubling times in 1 hour). So, starting with 1 bacterium, after 5 hours there will be 210 bacteria, which is 1024 bacteria.