A bacteria culture initially contains 3000 bacteria and doubles every half hour. Find the size of the bacterial population after 20 minutes. Find the size of the bacterial population after 8 hours.

Answer 1

The exponential growth law for this problem is

p(t) = 3000 (2)^t/30

where t is the time in minutes. To find the population after 20 minutes, plug in t=20 and evaluate P(20). To find it after 8 hours, plug in t=480 minutes (since 8 hrs equals 480 minutes) and evaluate p(480).