Marquan learns a new fact about his favorite animal, the sloth. He shares that fact with two other people. Those two people tell two others, and so on. How many people know the sloth fact after six rounds of information sharing?(1 point)

people

1 answer

The process of sharing information can be modeled as a geometric sequence. Marquan starts with 1 person (himself), and each round, every person shares the fact with 2 others.

  • Round 0: 1 person (Marquan)
  • Round 1: 2 people (Marquan shares with 2 others)
  • Round 2: 4 people (each of the 2 people from Round 1 shares with 2 others)
  • Round 3: 8 people (each of the 4 people from Round 2 shares with 2 others)
  • Round 4: 16 people (each of the 8 people from Round 3 shares with 2 others)
  • Round 5: 32 people (each of the 16 people from Round 4 shares with 2 others)
  • Round 6: 64 people (each of the 32 people from Round 5 shares with 2 others)

At each round \( n \), the number of new people who learn the fact is \( 2^n \).

So after 6 rounds of sharing, the total number of people who know the fact is:

  • Round 0: \( 1 = 2^0 \)
  • Round 1: \( 2 = 2^1 \)
  • Round 2: \( 4 = 2^2 \)
  • Round 3: \( 8 = 2^3 \)
  • Round 4: \( 16 = 2^4 \)
  • Round 5: \( 32 = 2^5 \)
  • Round 6: \( 64 = 2^6 \)

To find the total number of people who know the fact after six rounds, we sum all the people from each round:

\[ 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 = 127 \]

Thus, after six rounds of information sharing, the total number of people who know the sloth fact is 127.