Final answer:
Bacterial populations exhibit exponential growth, where the population doubles at consistent intervals, producing a J-shaped growth curve. The concept of doubling time is crucial in such calculations, as it determines how quickly a population increases. Using the mass of a hydrogen atom as a reference, the number of atoms in a bacterium can also be calculated.
Step-by-step explanation:
Exponential Bacterial Growth
Exponential growth in bacterial populations occurs when the population size doubles at regular intervals. If a population of bacteria doubles from 1,000 to 2,000 in an hour, it will continue to grow at an increasing rate, producing a J-shaped growth curve. To illustrate, if the bacteria double in number every hour, after three hours, we'd expect the population to reach 8,000. In a scenario where the doubling continues for 24 hours, starting with 1,000 bacteria, the population would exceed 16 billion.
Doubling time is a key concept in understanding exponential growth in biology. It refers to the time it takes for a population to double in size. Applying this concept to real-world examples, such as filling a one-liter jar with bacteria, we can mathematically calculate the number of bacteria at different time points or determine how many doubling times occur within a certain period.
When the growth rate is very high, such as bacteria doubling every minute, it can lead to unrealistic scenarios where a container would be filled to capacity almost instantly. However, for practical calculations, a more modest doubling time is used. An interesting fact about such growth is that if a jar is full at midnight and the doubling occurs every minute, the jar would be half full just one minute before midnight.
Calculating Atoms in a Bacterium
For a calculation involving the number of atoms in a bacterium, we use the average mass of an atom in the bacterium compared to the mass of a hydrogen atom. With the given hint, the weight of a hydrogen atom being on the order of 10-27 kg and a bacterium being on the order of 10-15 kg, the approximate number of atoms in a bacterium could be calculated.