Question

A virus double in number in about 10 minutes. You neighbor who has a cold sneeze you and you inhale just one bacterium. How many bacteria will you have in your throat at the end of 48 hours? Write it in normal and scientific notation.

Answer 1

In normal notation, this number is 340,282,370,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

In scientific notation, this number is 3.4028237e+86.

Explanation:

Assuming that each bacterium doubles every 10 minutes, we can use the formula N = N0 x 2^(t/d), where N is the number of bacteria, N0 is the initial number of bacteria (1 in this case), t is the time elapsed in minutes (48 hours = 2,880 minutes), and d is the doubling time in minutes (10 minutes in this case).

Using this formula, we can calculate the number of bacteria in your throat at the end of 48 hours as follows:

N = 1 x 2^(2,880/10) = 1 x 2^288 = 3.4028237 x 10^86