A Petri dish contains 2000. The number of bacteria triples every 6 hours. How many bacteria will exi

Discussion in 'Calculator Requests' started by math_celebrity, Nov 27, 2020.

  1. math_celebrity

    math_celebrity Administrator Staff Member

    A Petri dish contains 2000. The number of bacteria triples every 6 hours. How many bacteria will exist after 3 days?

    Determine the amount of tripling periods:
    • There are 24 hours in a day.
    • 24 hours in a day * 3 days = 72 hours
    • 72 hours / 6 hours tripling period = 12 tripling periods
    Our bacteria population function B(t) where t is the amount of tripling periods. Tripling means we multiply by 3, so we have:
    B(t) = 2000 * 3^t

    with t = 12 tripling periods, we have:
    B(12) = 2000 * 3^12
    B(12) = 2000 * 531441
    B(12) = 1,062,882,000
     

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