Question

Bacteria culture doubles every 20 minutes. After two hours there are 28800 bacteria. What was the initial amount?

Answer 1

450 bacteria.

Explanation:

To find this, we can set up an exponential equation as shown:

`28800 = a (2)^{(120)/(20) }`

**'a' being the initial value

** '2' representing the culture doubling

Simplify the equation down:

`28800 = a (2)^(6)`

`28800 = 64a\\a = 450.`

Therefore, the initial amount of bacteria was 450.