Question 499974: a biologist conducting an experiment starts with a culture of 300 E.coli bacteria. 72 hours later the culture consists of 600,000 bacteria. what is the average increase in the number of E. coli bacteria per hour?
Answer by oberobic(2304)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! What is the growth curve for E.coli cultures? It should be exponential, not linear because as the E.coli increase, the new E.coli will produce as well as the old E.coli. But absent this information, a linear estimate may be offered.
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300 bacteria over 72 hr resulted in 600000 bacteria.
So the increase is 599700 bacteria
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599700/72 = 8329.16667 per hr
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That's the average increase per hr.
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Of course, there is no way the 300 bacteria produced 8329 bacteria the first hr.
So, perhaps this example shows one of the hazards with "averages."
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Done.
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