Question

The population of bacteria can be modeled by the function below, where t represents the time since the population started decaying and f(t) represents the population of the remining bacteria at time t. What is the rate of decay for this population?

Answer 1

See Explanation

Explanation:

The question is incomplete. I will assume the function is:

`f(t) = 15(0.86)^t`

Required

Determine the rate of decay

In an exponential function
`f(x) = ab^x`,

The decay rate of the function is calculated as:

`1 - r = b`

By comparison:

`b = 0.86`

So, the equation becomes:

`1 - r = 0.86`

Make r the subject

`r = 1 - 0.86`

`r = 0.14`

The rate of decay is 0.14