Question

Question #adb20

Answer 1

See below.

Explanation:

Each time the bacteria divide, their volume will double because there will be double the amount of cells.

Thus, we can double 1,000 and the products of our doubling until we reach a number greater than 15,000:

`1,000*2=2,000`
`2,000*2=4,000`
`4,000*2=8,000`
`8,000*2=16,000`

We have now arrived at our number after doubling 4 times. Doubling in this instance is the cells dividing, so the cells divided a total of 4 times which equals 2 hours, or 120 minutes.

Here is a visual to help you understand how binary fission (cell division) results in exponential growth:

And here is the exponential graph: