Question

The science department left fungi growing as one of their experiments. The fungi had a growth rate of 4.5% per minutes. If the fungi grew to 36.000 after 2 hours, how much fungi did they start with? Round to the nearest whole number

Answer 1

In the science department, the fungi with the experiment started were 182.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine how much fungi the science department started with before it grew to 36,000 after 2 hours, we need to use the formula for exponential decay, since we're working backwards from the final amount.

With a growth rate of 4.5% per minute, we can express the original amount of fungi (P) after t minutes with the formula P = A / (1 + r)^t, ( where A is the final amount, r is the growth rate, and t is the number of time periods).

In this case, t is 120 minutes (2 hours), A is 36,000, and r is 0.045 (4.5% as a decimal).

Plugging these values in, we get P = 36,000 / (1.045)^120.

P = 3600 / 196.76

P = 182.95

P = 182 (to the nearest whole number).