supose the growth of a population in millions os modeled by 3.2(4.72)t. what is the size of the population initially?

Question

the t next to the parentheses in an exponent

Answer 1

Hello, thank you for taking the time to post your question!

In order to find the size of the population initially you want to plug in t = 0 into the equation. That means

3.2(4.72)^0

=3.2(1)

=3.2

So the initial size of the population here is 3.2 million

I hope that helps you get moving in a better direction on this type of question! Feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions beyond that :)

Answer 2

normally, you describe population growth as

 

P = P₀ (e^rt)= P₀ (e^r)^t = P₀ (constant)^t 

 

Where

P - Final Population

P0 - Initial Population

r - rate of growth

t -time

 

Which is not exactly how you have the equation written, But we could assume that your teacher didn't want to get right into the rate of growth, so maybe just let e^r be a constant.

 

P = P₀ (e^rt)= P₀ (e^r)^t = P₀ (constant)^t

 

If we assume that than looking at your equation, the initial population P₀ would be 3.2, but your problem states that the populations is in millions so to get the full correct answer you would need to answer

 

3.2 million