MTH 161 SECTION 1.

5 26
DELTA COLLEGE
A bacterial culture starts with 500 bacteria and doubles in size every half hour.
(a) How many bacteria are there after 3 hours?
(b) How many bacteria are there after t hours?
(c) How many bacteria are there after 40 minutes?
(d) Graph the population function and estimate the time for the population to reach 100,000.
Solution:
A simple table will give us a good amount of information about the growth of this bacteria. With every 1/2
hour (30 minutes) that passes we have twice as much of the bacteria as we had before.
t (minutes) 0 30 40 60 90 120 150 180 210 240
t (hours) 0 1/2 2/3 1 1 1/2 2 2 1/2 3 3 1/2 4
m (bacteria) 500 1,000 2,000 4,000 8,000 16,000 32,000 64,000 100,000 128,000
(a) According to the table, 32,000 bacteria.
(b) The formula for the amount of bacteria after t hours, is based on the formula for exponential growth.
b(t) = b
0
2
kt
where b
0
is the initial mass, k is related to the rate of growth, and t is measured in hours. Since b
0
= 500
and we want the material to be doubled every half hour:
b(t) = 500 2
2t
or simplied b(t) = 500 4
t
(c) If we use this formula with t = 2/3 hours (40 minutes), then we estimate
b(t) = 500 4
2/3
1,260 bacteria
to the nearest bacteria, which is consistent with our table.
(d) According to the table, this should happen
sometime between 3.5 and 4.0 hours (210 and
240 minutes).
At right we have the graph of b(t) and a horizontal
line at b = 100,000, and the line appears to intersect
the curve at t 3.8.
We can nd a much more accurate estimate if
we solve the follwing equation for t:
100000 = 500 4
t
200 = 4
t
t = log
4
200 3.822 hours
or 229 minuntes, consistent with our table.