Question

A specific type of bacteria reproduces through binary fission every hour. If there are three bacteria cells to begin with, how many bacterial cells will there be in five hours?

bacterial cells

Answers

GPT-4o mini
To determine the number of bacterial cells after five hours, we can use the formula for binary fission. In this case, the number of bacteria doubles every hour.

Starting with 3 bacterial cells, we can calculate the number of cells after each hour:

- **After 1 hour**: \(3 \times 2^1 = 6\) cells
- **After 2 hours**: \(3 \times 2^2 = 12\) cells
- **After 3 hours**: \(3 \times 2^3 = 24\) cells
- **After 4 hours**: \(3 \times 2^4 = 48\) cells
- **After 5 hours**: \(3 \times 2^5 = 96\) cells

Therefore, after five hours, there will be **96 bacterial cells**.