Question

The initial population is 250 bacteria, and the population after 9 hours is double the population after 1 hour. How many bacteria will there be after 5 hours?

Answer 1

Assuming uniform exponential growth, the population doubles every 8 hours. We can write the formula for the population as

`p(t) = 250*2^(t/8)` where `t` is measured in hours.

5 hours after the starting point, the population will be

`p(5) = 250*2^(5/8) ~= 386`