## anonymous 3 years ago A certain bacteria population is known to triple every 90 minutes. Suppose that there are initially 80 bacteria. What is the size of the population after t hours?

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1. anonymous

If you know the doubling formula, you can just convert $P2^{t/k} \to P3^{t/k}$ and use it that way.

2. anonymous

So if this was doubling instead of tripling you would have $P(t) = (80)2^{t/90}$ since you want this with respect to hours and not minutes you would convert the 90 minutes to hours or 1.5 so $P(2) = 80 \times 2^{t/1.5}$ Now just convert this to tripling instead of doubling.

3. anonymous

And that should be P(t) not P(2). Sorry.

4. anonymous

No idea what that is...its online homework. I think im supposed to use A(t)=(A_0)e^(kt)

5. anonymous

$A(t)=A _{0}e ^{kt}$

6. anonymous

You can use that equation if you want to. It's just harder and more difficult. If, however, there is a population whose growth doubles for a given time span, you can represent the growth by $A(t) = A_0 2^{t/k}$ where k represents the time it takes to "double". If it was tripling every time span you would use a 3 instead of a 2.

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