A culture of a certain bacteria doubles every hour. At 9:00 am, there were already 120 bacteria. Which equation represents the number of bacteria, n, at 8:00 am? How many bacteria were there.

Answer 1

To represent the number of bacteria at 8:00 am, we need to consider the amount of time that has passed from 8:00 am to 9:00 am, which is 1 hour. Since the bacteria doubles every hour, we can use the exponential growth equation:

n = initial number of bacteria * (growth rate)^(hours passed)

Let's solve for the number of bacteria at 8:00 am:

n = 120 * (1/2)^1

n = 120 * 1/2

n = 60

So, the equation that represents the number of bacteria, n, at 8:00 am is n = 60, and there were 60 bacteria at that time.