If you start with one bacterium that doubles every hour, the growth can be calculated as follows:
After 1 hour: 1 bacterium
After 2 hours: 2 bacteria (1 doubled to 2)
After 3 hours: 4 bacteria (2 doubled to 4)
After 4 hours: 8 bacteria (4 doubled to 8)
After 5 hours: 16 bacteria (8 doubled to 16)
After 6 hours: 32 bacteria (16 doubled to 32)
And so on. Each hour, the number of bacteria doubles. Therefore, you can use the formula 2^n to calculate the number of bacteria after n hours, where n is the number of hours that have passed.
For example, after 10 hours, there would be 2^10 = 1024 bacteria.
After 24 hours (1 day), there would be 2^24 = 16,777,216 bacteria.
So, the number of bacteria increases exponentially with time due to the rapid doubling, and the population can grow significantly within a short period in favorable conditions.
I hope this helped!
~~~Harsha~~~