Question

Dr. Walton is studying a bacterial colony with a population of 77,000 bacteria. The colony is growing 15% per hour. How many bacteria will the colony contain in 3 hours?

Answer 1

The colony will contain 117,107 bacteria in 3 hours

Here, we start by writing an exponential function that can represent the question

We have this as;

`N=I(1+r)^t`

N is the number of bacteria at a particular time t

I is the initial number of bacteria which is 77,000

r is the growth rate which is 15% = 15/100 = 0.15

t is the time in hours = 3

Substituting these values, we have it that;

`\begin{gathered} N=77,000(1+0.15)^3 \\ N=77,000(1.15)^3 \\ N\text{ = 117,107} \end{gathered}`

This answer is given to the nearest whole number