Suppose it takes 12
hours for a certain strain of bacteria to reproduce by dividing in half. If
45
bacteria are present to begin with, the total number present after
x
days is

f
(
x
)
=
45
⋅
4
x
.

Find the total number present after
1
,
2
, and
3
days.

Step-by-step explanation:

The formula is

which models the exponential function

where a is the initial amount of whatever it is you have (in our case it's bacteria), b is the growth rate (ours is 4 which means that every day the number from the day before increases by a factor of 4), and x is the number of days. We plug into the formula the values we have, starting with x = 1:

Always raise what's inside the parenthesis first, then multiply in the 45. 4 to the first is 4, and 4 multiplied by 45 is 180. After the first day, there are 180 bacteria present in the culture.

Next, x = 2:

which simplifies to

y = 45(16) so

y = 720.

Next, x = 3:

which simplifies to

y = 45(64) so

y = 2880

there are no short passages to look at