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The number of bacteria in a Petri dish doubles every month. If the dish started with 450 bacteria, how many will there be in 1 year?

User Wowo Ot
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Final answer:

The number of bacteria in the Petri dish after a year, when starting with 450 and doubling every month, will be 1,843,200. The calculation is based on exponential growth with the formula 2^n where 'n' is the number of intervals (in months).

Step-by-step explanation:

The subject of your query is exponential growth, specifically in the context of bacteria multiplying. The bacteria in your Petri dish doubles every month. This means that it is experiencing exponential growth, which can be calculated using the formula 2^n, where 'n' represents the number of periods or intervals, here represented in months.

To determine the total number of bacteria after 1 year (or 12 months), we substitute 'n' with 12 in the formula. Hence, we get 2^12. Performing this calculation gives us a result of 4096. However, this is the number of times the initial quantity of bacteria (which is 450) would have doubled after 12 months.

Therefore, to get the actual number of bacteria after 1 year, we multiply 4096 by 450. The final result is 1,843,200 bacteria. This means that if the bacteria continue to double every month, there will be 1,843,200 bacteria in the Petri dish after a year given that the initial quantity was 450 bacteria.

Learn more about Exponential Growth

User Frenetix
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