Question

A certain bacteria strain doubles in number every 15 minute. If the culture begins with 200 bacteria cells, how many cells will be present within 8 hours?

This is Algebra 2

Answer 1

Read below.

Explanation:

Since the bacteria double, we are basically multiplying the number of bacteria that we have currently by two.

Since there are 4 groups of 15 minutes in an hour, there are 32 groups of 15 minutes in 8 hours.

We are therefore multiplying by `2` 32 times.

Instead of writing down the 32 `2`'s, we can use the exponents.

We would therefore have:

`200*2^32`

Or if you want this even simpler,

`=>2*2*2*5*5*2^32`

`=>5*5*2^35`

`=>5^2*2^35`

`=>25*2^35`