TV411

Tune in to Learning

Bacteria: Math Lesson: Activity 3 of 3

DictionaryCalculator

Directions

Let’s take a look again at bacterial growth. There’s something exponential about it. Look at the red numbers along the curve. Do you see a pattern?

The graphs shows that bacteria double every hour. So we multiply the number of cells by 2 for every hour that passes. This is a pattern called exponential growth.

For example, at 1 hour, we have 2 cells. At 2 hours, the cells have doubled, so now we have 2 × 2 = 4 cells. 2 × 2 is the same as 2². So we can say that at 2 hours there are 4, or 2² cells. The pattern continues: at 3 hours, we have 2³ cells, and so on as you see in the last row in the table below.

If you continue the experiment, how many cells would there be at 10 hours? In other words, how many cells is 2¹⁰?

PrevNext
Question 11 of 11